The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026471569 
 
Cornell University Library 
 E 477 .67.C44 
 
 Passing of the armies: 
 
 3 1924 026 471 569 
 
tne'fei] 
 
 'we are on tne 'enemy's rear^ 
 guns.' 'I don't care a d — foF^efi 
 sir! What are you here for? Go back- to your business, 
 where you belong ! What I want ig that ^pRthside j 
 Road.' * * * Then Sheridan, rising in his stirrups, 
 hat in hand waving aloft at full arm's length, face black 
 as his horse, and both like a stofSfking, r^'ffld out: 'I! 
 want you men to understand that we "ecord to 
 
 make, before that sun goes dow^ tl-' make belli 
 
 tremble ! I want you there !' w ading along 
 
 the ground of the wide pursuit, I kept my bugler sound- 
 ing the brigade calls of the division. This brought our 
 officers and men to the left. Among others General 
 Warren came riding slowly from the right. I took pains 
 to greet him cheerfully, and explained to him why I was 
 sounding all the bugle calls. 'Ton are doing just right,' 
 he replied, 'but I am not in command of the corps.' " 
 
 Surely no scene in that last vast panorama of battle 
 is more dramatic than the desperate effort Warren made 
 to die with honor at the head of his men, as General 
 Chamberlain tells it. According to his story, Griffin had 
 just ordered Colonel Richardson, of the 8th Wisconsin, 
 one of Crawford's regiments, to charge the last angle 
 of the enemy's position. Griffin's own men had just 
 failed to carry it, and Richardson grasped the regimental 
 colors himself and spurred his horse to the front of his* 
 men to lead them in person. "General Warren, with 
 intensity of feeling that is now desperation, snatches 
 his corps flag from the hands of its bearer, and dashes 
 to Richardson's side. And so the two leaders ride, the 
 corps commander and his last visible colonel — colors 
 aloft * * *- one with swelling tumult of soul, where 
 the passion oTsafEering craves outburst in action ; the 
 other with obedience and self-devotion, love-like, stronger 
 than death. Over the breastworks, down among the 
 astonished foe, one of whom, instinct overmastering 
 admiration, aims at the foremost a deadly blow, which 
 the j^oble youth rushes forward to parry, and, shielding 
 with his own the breast of his uncaring commander, falls 
 to earth, bathing his colors with his blood. * * * 
 Slowly Warren returns over the somber field." 
 And after he had read the short, brutal order relieving 
 him of his command, handed to him as he rode, hel 
 approached Sheridan "with almost the agony of dejfth 
 upon his face" and his plea for reconsideration of thei 
 order met with the retort : "Reconsider ! Hell ! I don't' 
 reconsider my decisions. Obey the order!" ' 
 
 It is a wonderful picture General Chamberlain paints 
 of the straggling, disjointed battle, which seems to have 
 been turned into a victory by a lucky combination of j 
 circumstances, rather than by any particular achievement | 
 of strategy. One of its closing touches is another view 
 of Sheridan, the other Sheridan. " 'Gentlemen,' says 
 Sheridan, as we half started to our feet, 'I have come I 
 over to see you. I may have spoken harshly to some of ' 
 you to-day; but I would not have it hurt you. You 
 know how it is ; we had to carry this place, and I w;as 
 fretted all day till it was done. You must'fsrgive me. 
 I know it is hard for the men, too; but we irlust push. 
 There is more for us to do together. I appreciate and 
 thank you all.' " ' ■ 
 
 General Chamberlain's analysis of Five Forks and 
 the Warren incident concludes that the fundamental 
 trouble was a misunderstanding of the enemy'd< position 
 based upon an imperfect reconnaissance, for which 
 Sheridan was responsible. "Saying that General Warren 
 was not 'in the fight,' while it might be pardoned as an 
 excited ejaculation in the heat of battle, wiU not stand 
 as sober truth or as the premise for so violent a con- 
 clusion. * * * The case against Warren seems 
 labored. But, after all, the rupture between Warren 
 and Sheridan was caused by something far deeper — 
 plain incompatibility of temperament. Sheridan himself 
 summed it up in a remark long afterwards, in reply to 
 a question why he had removed Warren: "Hell, sir 
 you can't fight a positive '"t'iiiniirti I J-JIIL!" 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons, I«* York, publif 
 
} 
 
 OF THE CIVIL WAR. | 
 
 We wish we could place in the hands of every youUg 
 American a copy of "The Passing of the Armies," the 
 account of the part played by the 5th Corps of the Army 
 of the Potomac in the final campaign of the Civil War, 
 by Bvt. Major Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 
 U.S.V. General Chamberlain represents the best typogf 
 of the Volunteer ollicer, one of the earnest men whoj 
 abandoned their professions at their country's call inj 
 1861, and who, by diligent mastery of a complex science,! 
 in the end helped to forge one of the most potent military i 
 engines the world has ever known, an engine which, at, 
 the period of its final growth and development in the 
 spring of 18C5, was the most powerful then in exi-tenc'.' J 
 Let Americans to whom their country's present pligUV" 
 in the eyes of the world brings the blush of .':hame , 
 Temember this, and take comfort in hope of a return ? 
 sanity in the future. General Chamberlain's boolt 
 particularly interesting, in that, copious as it i- v^5>. 
 focuses its attention exclusively upon the events > >. / 
 single campaign, that swift-moving phase of the wir 
 which ended in the destruction of the Confederacy br 
 the annihilation of its field armies. There is not a iitile 
 "inside history" between its covers. I, 
 
 Especially interesting, in the vivid light it sheds upr. s 
 points disputed now for well nigh two generations, i. \ 
 General Chamberlain's account of the battle of I'iv j 
 Forks and the drama of conflicting human wills th 
 culminated in the removal by Sheridan of Warren (ton i 
 command of the 5th Corps. "The corps formation wus," J 1 
 says General Chamberlain, in dealing with Five Forits, J 
 "Ayres on the left, west of the Church Road, the divisio', ( 
 in double brigade front in two lines, and Winthrop witUj , 
 the 1st Brigade in i-eserve, in rear of his center ; Crav -' ' 
 ford on the right, east of the road, in similar formatior- -; 
 Griffin in rear of Crawford, with Bartlett's brigade .. ■' 
 double column of regiments, three lines deep; my o^-""1,^ 
 brigade next, somewhat in echelon to the right, wj i 
 three battalion lines in close order, while Gregory at liJ^ ( 
 was held massed in my rear." The last General CI' i- 
 1 berlain saw of Warren, when the battle started, wa> '.[_ 
 ■ he was leading his own brigade to fill the gap Dch'. j 
 ' Ayres's and Crawford's divisions, which was not the ij..i <. i 
 assiBued to him. "Somewhere near the angle of th- j 
 'return' I met Sheridan. He had probably seen n ■ 
 putting my men in, and hence I escaped censure fci.i 
 .appearing. Indeed, his criticism seemed to be that lh.;I^■!l■^ 
 was not more of me, rather than less. 'By G — , ! _'s ', 
 what I want to see!' was his greeting, 'general oh. .^rs ' 
 at the front. AVhere are your general ollicers?' '''■ 
 would seem from this remark as if Sheridan alri j , 
 wa3 nursing the grievance which culminated in the al (' 
 
 removal of Warren. ■■ 
 
 Of the conclusion of the advance General Chamberlain j 
 
 remarks: "We, too, were pressing hard on the Ford I 
 
 Road from the east, so that all were crowded into that | 
 
 whirlpool of the fight. Just as I reached it Captain | 
 
 Brinton, of Griffin's staff, dashed up at headlong speed ■ 
 
 and asked if I knew that Griffin was in command of the | 
 
 corps. I asked Brinton wha.t he meant. He told me 
 
 the story. General Warren, when he got to the rear of 
 
 the Ford Road, sent an enthusiastic message by Colonel 
 
 "Locke, his chief of staff, to Sheridan, saying that he was 
 
 in the enemy's rear, cutting off his retreat and had many 
 
 prisoners. This message met scant courtesy. Sheridan's 
 
 patience was exhausted. 'By G — , sir, tell General 
 
 Warren he wasn't in the fight!' Colonel Locke was 
 
 thunderstruck. 'Must I tell General Warren that, sir?' 
 
 . asked he. 'Tell him that, sir!' came back the words 
 
 ; like hammer blows. 'I would not like to take a verbal 
 
 ' message like that to General Warren. May I take it 
 
 down in writing?' Take it down, sir; tell him, by G — , 
 
 . lie was not at the front !' 
 
 "Pressing down towards the Forks, some of Ayres's 
 
'We are oinwre^nemy's rear, auu nave got mree pinneir 
 guns.' 'I don't care a d — for their guns, .or yqu. -either, 
 sir ! What are you here for? Go baclfc to your business, 
 where you belong ! What I want' i§ that ^j^tjiside 
 Road.' * * * Then Sheridan; risiag in his stirrups, 
 hat in hand waving aloft at full arm's. Length, face Mack 
 as his horse, and both like a stdfnFking, r^'ffld out: 'I 
 want you men to understand that we record to 
 
 make, before that sun goes dow|^ tb' make h^U 
 
 tremble! I want you there!' 7R ading along 
 
 the ground of the^ wide pursuit, I kept mt bugler sound- 
 ing the brigade calls of the division.: This brought our 
 officers and men to the left. Among others General 
 Warren came riding slowly from the right. I- took pains 
 to greet him cheerfully, and explained to him why I was 
 sounding all the bugle calls. 'You are doing just right,' j 
 he replied, 'but I am not in command of the corps.' " 
 
 Surely no scene in that last v^st panorama of battle | 
 is more dramatic than the desperate effort Warren made 
 to die with t(onqr at the head of his men, as General 
 Chamberlain tells it. According to his story. Griffin had 
 just ordered Colonel Richardson, of the 8th Wisconsin, 
 one of Crawford's Regiments, to charge the last angle 
 , of the enemy's position. Griffin's own men had juSt 
 failed to carry it, and Richardson grasped the regimental 
 colors himself and spurred his horse to the front of his 
 1 men to lead them in person. "General Warren, with 
 intensity of feeling that is now desperation, snatches 
 his corps flag from the hands of its bearer, and dashes 
 to Richardson's side. And so the two leaders ride, the 
 corps commander and his last visible colonel — colors 
 aloft * * *^ one with swelling tumult of soul, where j 
 the passion dr°sufEering craves outburst in action ; the ) 
 other with obedience and self-devotion, love-like, stronger, 
 than death. Over the breastworks, down among the' I 
 astonished foe, one of whom, instinct overmastering 
 admiration, aims at the foremost a deadly blow, whiek 
 th^aoble youth rushes forward to parry, and, shielding j 
 witH his own the breast of his uncaring commander, falls ' 
 to ear^h, bathing his colors with his blood. * * ^■,* \ 
 Slowly Warren returns over the somber field." j 
 
 And after be had read the short, brutal order relieving 
 him of his command, handed to him as he rod«, he 
 approached Sheridan "with almost the agony of' dedTth 
 upon his face" and his plea for reconsideration of the' 
 order met with the retort: "Reconsider! Hell! I don't 
 reconsider my decisions. Obey the order !" 
 
 It is a wonderful picture General Chamberlain paints^ 
 of the straggling, disjointed battle, which seeAs to have 
 been turned into a victory , by a lucky combination of 
 circumstances, rather than by any particular achievement 
 of strategy. One of its closing touches is another view 
 of Sheridan, the other Sheridan. " 'Gentlemen,',. says 
 Sheridan, as we half started to out feet,': 'I have'" come 
 over to see you. I may have spoken harshly, to some of 
 you to-day; but I would not have it hurt you. You 
 know how it is; we had to carry this place, and I w;as 
 fretted all day till it was done. You must-fiibrgive me. 
 I know it is hurd for the men, too ; but we -'fflust push. 
 There is more for us to do together. I apjireeiate and 
 thank you all.' " . * ■ 
 
 General Chamberlain's analysis of Five Kferks and 
 the Warren incident concludes that the fundamental 
 trouble was a misunderstanding of the enemy'^ position 
 based upon an imperfect reconnaissance, for which 
 , Sheridan was responsible. "Saying that General Warren 
 was not in the fight,' while it might be pardoned as an 
 excited ejaculation in the heat of battle, will aot stand 
 as sober truth or as the premise for so violent a con- 
 clusion. * * * The case against Warren seems 
 labored. But, after all, the rupture between Warren 
 and Sheridan was caused by something far deeper — 
 plain incompatibility of temperament. Sheridan himself 
 summed it up in a remark long afterwards, in reply to , 
 a question why he had removed Warren: "Hell, sir, 
 you can't fight a positive battle with a pegative man !" 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, niihlish Ootioi-ai I 
 
 ,.u..„l«;..i_ 
 
Joshua Lawreice Chamberlain 
 
The Passing of the 
 Armies 
 
 An Account of the Final Campaign of the 
 
 Army of the Potomac, Based upon 
 
 Personal Reminiscences of 
 
 the Fifth Army Corps 
 
 By 
 Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain 
 
 Brevet Major-General U, S. Volunteers 
 
 With Portraits and Maps 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 New York and Lcaidon 
 
 1915 
 
Copyright, igis 
 
 BY 
 
 GRACE DUPEE ALLEN 
 
 AND 
 
 HAROLD W. CHAMBERLAIN 
 
 Ube IRnfclterbocIier ipress, Wew iSort 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN, 
 who won distinction both as a soldier and as 
 a citizen, for the State of Maine, and for the 
 whole country, was born in Brewer, Maine, Sep- 
 tember 8, 1828. His parental lineage is traced 
 back to England, but on the mother's side he is 
 descended from Jean Duptiis, who came, in 1685, 
 with other Huguenots, from La Rochelle to Boston. 
 Yoxmg Chamberlain was brought up in the country- 
 district of Brewer. As Greek was not included in 
 the curriculum of the school where he prepared 
 for college, with the aid of a tutor he attacked 
 that language at home, and in six months, at the 
 age of nineteen, had mastered the amount required 
 for entrance to Bowdoin. In his college course, 
 he took honors in every department. After 
 his graduation in 1852, he entered the Theologi- 
 cal Seminary at Bangor, and for several years 
 gave attention to the reading of theology, and 
 of church history in Latin and German. His 
 work included the study of the Hebrew, Syriac, 
 and Arabic languages. He earned an ample in- 
 come for his sojourn in the seminary by teaching 
 classes of young ladies the German language and 
 literature, while he also served as Supervisor of 
 
iv Biographical Note 
 
 Schools in his native town of Brewer. He continued 
 his interest in Siinday-school work, helping to 
 maintain a flourishing 'school some three miles 
 from Bangor. 
 
 In 1856, as a result of his "Master's Oration" 
 on " Law and Liberty," he was appointed instructor 
 in Bowdoin in Natural and Revealed ReHgion, a 
 post that had been vacated by Professor Stowe. 
 A year later, he was elected a Professor of Rhetoric 
 and Oratory, which place he held for four years. 
 In 1 86 1, he was elected Professor of Modern 
 Languages, and in July, 1862, was granted leave of 
 absence for two years for the purpose of pursuing 
 studies in Europe. The need at this time of the 
 Republic for all its able-bodied citizens caused 
 him, however, to give up the Etiropean trip and to 
 offer his services for action in the field. In August, 
 
 1862, he went to the front as Lieutenant-Colonel 
 of the Twentieth Regiment of Maine Volunteers. 
 In May, he received commission as Colonel, the 
 duty of which post he had been fulfilling for some 
 months. His regiment was included with the Fifth 
 Corps, and at Gettysburg on the second of July, 
 
 1863, it held the extreme left of the Union line. 
 Colonel Chamberlain's conduct in the memorable 
 defense of Little Round Top (a poation which 
 with admirable judgment had been seized by 
 General Warren) was recognized by the Govern- 
 ment in the bestowal of the Congressional Medal 
 of Honor for "conspicuous personal gallantry and 
 distinguished service." 
 
 After Gettysburg, Colonel Chamberlain was 
 
Biographical. Note v 
 
 placed in command of the "Light Brigade," which 
 he handled with marked skill in the action at Rap- 
 pahannock Station. The wounds received in that 
 battle made necessary retirement for a time to the 
 Georgetown Hospital, but during his convalesence 
 he gave valuable service as member of a Cotirt- 
 Martial. He returned to the front in May, 1864, 
 when General Warren, at that time in command of 
 the Fifth Corps then stationed at Spottsylvania, 
 made Colonel Chamberlain the commander of a 
 "forlorn hope" of nine regiments which had been 
 selected to make a night assatilt on the enemy's 
 works. The position was gained, but Chamberlain 
 found his line outflanked, and was compelled to 
 withdraw under heavy fire. Shortly after the 
 action at Cold Harbor, while still holding the rank 
 of Colonel, he was placed in charge of six regiments, 
 consolidated as a veteran brigade. With this 
 brigade, he made a charge on the enemy's main 
 works at Petersburg, as a result of which action he 
 was promoted on the field by General Grant to the 
 rank of Brigadier-General "for gallant conduct in 
 leading his brigade against the superior force of 
 the enemy and for meritorious service" throughout 
 the campaign. Such promotion on the field wa,s 
 most exceptional, and there is possibly no other 
 instance during the war. In this charge General 
 Chamberlain was seriously wounded, and his 
 death was in fact announced. His life was saved 
 through the activity of his brother Thomas, late 
 Colonel of the Twentieth Maine, and the skill and 
 tireless fidelity of the regimental surgeon. Dr. Shaw. 
 
vi Biographical Note 
 
 During the last campaign of the war, General 
 Chamberlain, with two brigades, led the advance 
 of the infantry with Sheridan, and in the fight on 
 the Quaker Road he was twice wotinded and his 
 horse was shot under him. For his "conspicuous 
 gallantry" in this action, he was promoted to the 
 brevet rank of Major-General. In the fight at 
 White Oak Road, March 31st, although seriously 
 disabled by wounds. General Chamberlain dis- 
 tinguished himself by recovering a lost field; while 
 in the battle of Five Forks, of April ist, his prompti- 
 tude and skillful handling of troops received again 
 official commendation. In the final action near 
 Appomattox Court House on the ninth of April, 
 Chamberlain was called by General Sheridan to 
 replace the leading division of cavalry, and the 
 first flag of truce from Longstreet came to Cham- 
 berlain's headquarters. His Corps Commander 
 says in an official report: "In the final action. 
 General Chamberlain had the advance, and at the 
 time the announcement of the surrender was made 
 he was driving the enemy rapidly before him." 
 
 At the surrender of Lee's army. General Cham- 
 berlain was designated to command the parade, 
 and it was characteristic of his refined nature that 
 he received the surrendering army with a salute of 
 honor. At the final grand review in Washington, 
 Chamberlain's division was placed at the head of 
 the column of the Army of the Potomac. The 
 General was mustered out of mihtary service on 
 the sixteenth of January, 1866, having declined 
 the offer of a Colonelcy in the regular army. In 
 
Biographical Note vii 
 
 his service of three-and-a-half years, he had 
 participated in twenty hard-fought battles and a 
 long series of minor engagements, and he had been 
 struck six times by bullet and shell. 
 
 During his campaign experience, he had shown 
 marked ability as a commander, but he had other 
 quaUties as important, namely, foresight, prudence, 
 and a strong sense of responsibility. On his return 
 to Maine, he was offered the choice of several 
 diplomatic offices abroad, but was at once elected 
 Governor of Maine by the largest majority ever 
 given in the State. As Governor, while rendering 
 exceptional service to the State, he suffered criti- 
 cism on various grounds, and among others through 
 his support of the course of Senator Fessenden, of 
 Maine, in the impeachment of President Johnson. 
 
 In 1876, General Chamberlain was elected 
 President of Bowdoin College. In 1878, he was 
 appointed by the President of the United States to 
 represent the educational interests of the country 
 as a commissioner at the World's Exposition in 
 Paris, and for this service he received a medal of 
 honor from the Government of France. 
 
 In 1883, he resigned the presidency of Bowdoin 
 College, but continued for two years longer his 
 lectures on public law. During this time, he put 
 to one side urgent invitations to the presidency 
 of three other colleges of high standing. In 1885, 
 finding that the long strain of work and wounds 
 demanded a change of occupation, he went to 
 Florida as president of a railroad construction 
 company. In 1900, General Chamberlain was 
 
viii Biographical Note 
 
 appointed by President McKinley Stirveyor of 
 Customs at the port of Portland, and through the 
 courtesy of the Government he was enabled to 
 make visits to Italy and to Egypt. The General 
 was in great request as a speaker, and on various 
 occasions his utterances showed a power that was 
 thrilling. Among the more noteworthy of these 
 addresses may be ^nentioned the following: 
 
 "Loyalty," before the Loyal Legion in Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 "The Sentiment and Sovereignty of the Coun- 
 try," at the Meade Memorial Service in Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 "The State, the Nation, and the People," on 
 the dedication of the Maine monument at Gettys- 
 burg. 
 
 "Maine, Her Place in History," at the Centen- 
 nial Celebration in Philadelphia in 1876. 
 
 "The Ruling Powers in History," at the cele- 
 bration of the beginnings of English settlement on 
 the east shores. 
 
 Among his Memorial Addresses were: 
 
 "The Two Souls: Self and Other Self;" "The 
 Concentric Personalities. " 
 
 "The Higher Law," conditions on which it may 
 override the actual. 
 
 "Personal and Political Responsibility." 
 
 "The Old Flag and the New Nation"; "The 
 Expanding Power of Principles." 
 
 "The Destruction of the Maine" ; " Salute to the 
 New Peace Power." 
 
 The General received from Pennsylvania Uni- 
 
Biographical Note ix 
 
 versity in 1866, the degree of Doctor of Laws, and 
 from Bowdoin in 1869 the same degree. 
 
 His death came on the 24th of February, 1914. 
 His life had been well rounded out and his years 
 were crowded with valuable service to his state and 
 to his country, 
 
 A gallant soldier, a great citizen, and a good man; 
 the name of Joshua L. Chamberlain will through 
 the years to come find place in the list of dis- 
 tinguished Americans. 
 
 G. H. P. 
 
 New York, April, 1915. 
 
 Note. — The narrative here presented is sub- 
 stantially complete, but the author's death pre- 
 vented it from receiving the advantage of a final 
 revision. The book has been prepared for the 
 press under the supervision of his children. It 
 now comes into publication just half a century 
 after the period of the stirring events described. 
 
Introductory xiii 
 
 had the effect of creating on the part of others a 
 feeling of jealousy towards that Division or an 
 opposition to apparent favoritism shown its com- 
 naander, which was extended to the whole Corps 
 on its formation in the summer of 1862, when the 
 Regulars were assigned to it as its Second Division,, 
 and the choice Pennsylvania Reserves became its 
 Third Division. This feeling certainly was neither 
 caused nor followed by anything like boaStfulness 
 or self-complacency on the part of the Fifth Corps; 
 but, if anything, created a sense of responsibility 
 and willingness, to "endure hardness as good 
 soldiers" to make good their reputation. And no 
 doubt the discipline of the Corps was quite severe. 
 Most of its commanding officers in the superior 
 grades were West Pointers, and experienced offi- 
 cers of the old army, and prided themselves on 
 strict observance of Army Regulations and military 
 habitudes. The required personal relations be- 
 tween officers and men were quite novel and but 
 slowly acquiesced in by volunteers who were first- 
 class citizens at home, — ^many of them equal to 
 their official "superiors." For example: my young 
 brother, Tom, when a private in my regiment 
 came sometimes to see me in my tent, but would 
 not think of sitting down in my presence unless 
 specially invited to do so, • But he went home from 
 Appomattox Lieutenant-Colonel of his regiment 
 and Brevet-Colonel of United States Volunteers^ — 
 and this on his own merits, not through any sug- 
 gestion of mine. 
 
 Passages in the history of the Corps had en- 
 
xiv Introductory 
 
 deared its members to each other, and brought out 
 soldierly pride and manly character; but boastftd 
 assertion and just glorification of their Corps were 
 remarkably less manifest among its members than 
 with those of every one of the other splendid Corps 
 of the Army of the Potomac. 
 
 It may not be improper to state here that there 
 was a manifest prejudice against the Fifth Corps 
 at Government Headquarters, — ^particularly at 
 Stanton's, — on account of the supposed attachment 
 for McCleUan and Porter among its members. 
 This was believed to be the reason why no pro- 
 motion to the rank of General Officers was made 
 in this Corps for a long time, unless secured by 
 political influence. Brigades and even divisions 
 were in many cases commanded by colonels of 
 State regiments. This worked a great injustice in 
 the fact that officers of similar commands in the 
 different Corps were not of similar relative raiik, 
 and some were therefore unduly subordinated to 
 those who were not in fact their superiors in ser- 
 vice. There was also a practical injustice in the 
 added expense of supporting headquarters above 
 lineal rank, which, with no extra pay or allowance, 
 qtiite cancelled the compliment. 
 
 It had not been the habit in the Fifth Corps to 
 encourage detailed reports on the part of sub- 
 ordinates, and in the rush and pressure of this 
 last campaign there was less opportunity or care 
 than ever for such matters, and the impressiveness 
 of its momentous close left little disposition to 
 multiply words upon subordinate parts or partici- 
 
Introductory xv 
 
 pants. The fact also of an early and sudden change 
 in the grand tactics of the campaign confused the 
 significance and sometimes the identity of import- 
 ant movements; and the change of commanders 
 in the crisis of its most important battle induced 
 consequences which, even in official reports and 
 testimony afterwards called for, affected the motive 
 in sharply defining actions where personal concern 
 had come to be an embarrassing factor. 
 
 Very naturally, the immediate reports of those 
 days are meager in the extreme; and very much of 
 what has come out since, partaking of official 
 character, has been under the disadvantage of 
 being elicited as ex parte testimony before military 
 tribunals where the highest military officers of the 
 Government were parties, and the attitudes of 
 plaintiff and defendant almost inevitably biased 
 expression. 
 
 In the strange lull after the surrender of Lee and 
 the sudden release from intense action and re- 
 sponsibility, but as yet in the field and in the active 
 habit not readily relinqtiished, it occurred to me, 
 impressed with the deep-wrought visions of those 
 tragic days, to write down, while fresh in mind and 
 mood, some salient facts of that last campaign, 
 within my personal knowledge and observation, 
 to serve for fireside memories in after years, and 
 for the satisfaction of some others who had given 
 of their best for the great issues in which these 
 scenes were involved. 
 
 It has been suggested to me of late that these 
 reminiscences might be of interest to a wider circle 
 
xvi Introductory 
 
 whose hearts respond to the story of things done 
 and siiifered for truth and honor's sake, which 
 they would have gladly shared in their own persons. 
 In preparing for this more exacting demand I have 
 availed myseH of additional material which, in the 
 later consolidations in the Fifth Corps, successive 
 assignments brought into my hands: partictilarly 
 the office-copy of the Corps field-orders for the last 
 campaign, and also the invaluable original records 
 of the Medical Inspector of the Corps for that 
 period. Later, came the (now suppressed) volumes 
 of the records of the Warren Court of Inquiry, and 
 the extensive Records of the War of the Rebellion. 
 In revising this personal memoir, I have diligently 
 constdted these, but have found no occasion to 
 correct or modify the account given from my own 
 point of view, however limited. Qualifying or 
 corroborative testimony from these sources, when 
 introduced, has been clearly indicated. 
 
 I confess some embarrassments of a personal 
 nature in giving forth certain passages of this 
 record. These facts, however simply stated, cannot 
 but have some bearing on points which have been 
 drawn into controversy on the part of persons 
 who were dear to me as commanders and com- 
 panions in arms, and who have grown still dearer 
 in the intimacies of friendship since the war. 
 Alas! that no one of them can answer my greeting 
 across the bar. I feel therefore under increased 
 responsibility in recounting these things, but 
 assure myself that I know of no demand of per- 
 sonality or partisanship which should make me 
 
Introductory xvii 
 
 doubtful of my ability to tell the truth as I saw 
 and knew it, or distrust my judgment in forming 
 an opinion. 
 
 J. L. C. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Biographical Note iii 
 
 Introductory ..... . xi 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Situation i 
 
 II. The Overture 
 
 
 
 . 36 
 
 III. The White Oak Road . 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 IV. Five Forks 
 
 
 
 ■ "3 
 
 V. The Week of Flying Fights 
 
 
 
 . 182 
 
 VI. Appomattox 
 
 
 
 . 230 
 
 VII. The Return of the Army 
 
 
 
 273 
 
 VIII. The Encampment . 
 
 
 
 318 
 
 IX. The Last Review . 
 
 
 
 . 326 
 
 X. Sherman's Army 
 
 
 
 364 
 
 XI. The Disbandment . 
 
 
 
 375 
 
 XIX 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain . Frontispiece 
 
 Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain ... 2 
 
 General Map Showing " Operations of the 
 Army OF the Potomac" .... 38 
 
 Map Showing the White Oak Road and Five 
 Forks 98 
 
 Map of Five Forks, General Engagement of 
 Cavalry and Infantry .... 124 
 
 XXI 
 
The Passing of the Armies 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE SITUATION 
 
 IT was a dreamy camp along the lines investing 
 Petersburg in the winter following the "all- 
 sttmmer ' ' campaign of 1 864, — ^that never-to-be- 
 forgotten, most dismal of years. Although shad- 
 owed at the very beginning by melancholy tokens 
 of futile endeavor and grievous losses, — consolida- 
 tions of commands which obliterated the place and 
 name of proud and beloved corps and divisions, — 
 flags made sacred by heroic service and sacrifice 
 of noble nianhood now folded away with tender 
 reverence, or perhaps by special favor permitted 
 to be borne beside those of new assignments, 
 bearing the cornmanding presence of great memo- 
 ries, pledge and talisman of unswerving loyalty, 
 though striking sorrow to every heart that knew 
 their history, — ^yet this seemed not to make for 
 weakness but rather for settled strength. We 
 started out full of faith and hope under the new 
 dispensation, resolved at all events to be worthy 
 of our past and place. 
 
2 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Now all was over. The summer had passed, and 
 the harvest was but of death. New and closer 
 consoUdations, more dreary obUterations, brought 
 the survivors nearer together. 
 
 For this dismal year had witnessed that ever 
 repeated, prolific miracle, — ^the invisible, ethereal 
 sotd of man resisting and overcoming the material 
 forces of nature; scorning the inductions of logic, 
 reason, and experience, persisting in its ptupose 
 and identity; this elusive apparition between two 
 worlds unknown, deemed by some to be but the 
 chance product of intersecting vortices of atoms 
 and denied to be even a force, yet outfacing the 
 solid facts of matter and time, defjong disaster and 
 dissolution, and, by a most real metempsychosis, 
 transmitting its imperishable purpose to other 
 hearts with the cumulative courage of immortal 
 energies. 
 
 Give but the regard of a glance to the baldest 
 outline of what was offered and suffered, given and 
 taken, lost and held, in that year of tragedy. That 
 long-drawn, tete haissee (bull-headed), zig-zag race 
 from the Rapidan to the Appomattox; that des- 
 perate, inch-worm advance along a front of fire, 
 with writhing recoil at every touch; that reiterated 
 dissolving view of death and resurrection: the 
 Wilderness, Spottsylvania, the North Anna, Cold 
 Harbor, Petersburg; unspoken, tmspeakable his- 
 tory. Call back that roseate May morning, all 
 the springs of life athrill, that youthful army 
 pressing the bridges of the Rapidan, flower of 
 Northern homes, thousands upon thousands; tested 
 
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain 
 
The Situation 3 
 
 in valor, disciplined by experience, hearts swelling 
 with manly courage, confident trust, and supreme 
 devotion, — to be plunged straightway into hell- 
 Uke horrors; the murderous maze where desperate 
 instinct replaced impossible tactics; men mowing 
 each other down almost at hand-reach, invisible 
 each to each till the flaming muzzles cut lurid 
 windows through the matted brush and bramble 
 walls, and underneath the darkened woods low- 
 lying cannon and bursting shells set the earth itself 
 on fire, and wrapped in winding sheets of flame 
 unnumbered, thick-strewn bodies of dead and 
 dying, never to be found or known on earth again. 
 
 Then the rushing, forced flank-movements, 
 known and overmatched by the ever alert enemy; 
 followed by reckless front attacks, where highest 
 valor was deepest loss; buffetings on bloody angles; 
 butcherings in slaughter pens, — all the way down 
 to the fateftd Chickahominy once more — a cam- 
 paign under fire for twenty-seven days and nights 
 together; morning reports at last not called for, 
 and when we asked explanation our superiors an- 
 swered, — confidentially, lest it seem disloyal : "Be- 
 cause the country would not stand it, if they knew." 
 
 What wonder that men who have passed through 
 such things together, — ^no matter on which side 
 arrayed, — should be wrought upon by that strange 
 power of a common suffering which so divinely 
 passes into the power of a common love. 
 
 A similar fate befell the new hope kindled by 
 Grant's sudden change to a new base of opera- 
 tions, — a movement bold if not hazardous, being 
 
4 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 practically a change of front under fire for the 
 whole army on a grand scale. Skill ftilly withdraw- 
 ing from the enemy's front by secret orders and 
 forced marches, swiftly crossing the James River 
 on transports and pontoons, hurrjdng forward to 
 strike a surprise on weakly-defended Petersburg, 
 and thus cut Lee's main commtinications and 
 turn his entire position — ^seemed good generalship. 
 But the bold plan and generous following stultified 
 by confusion of understandings and supine delays 
 of subordinates, brought all to nought once more 
 with terrible recoil and reckoning. Then the long 
 slow fever of profitless minor action and wasteful 
 inaction, with the strange anomaly of a mutual 
 siege; crouching in trenches, skulking under bomb- 
 proofs and covered ways, fining parapets where to 
 show a head was to lure a bullet, picketing a 
 crowded hostile front where the only tenure of 
 fife was the tacit understanding of a common 
 humanity, perpetual harassing by spasmodic raid 
 or futile dash, slow creepings flankward yet never 
 nearer the main objective; — such was the weari- 
 some, wearing experience, month after month, the 
 new year bringing no sign nor hope that an5^hing 
 better could be done on that fine than had been so 
 dearly and vainly tried before. 
 
 The resultant mood of such a front was not 
 relieved by what reached us from the rear. The 
 long-suffering, and helpless grief of homes; the 
 sore-tried faith and patience of the whole North 
 almost faltering; recruiting disenchanted, supple- 
 mented by enormous botmties and finally by 
 
The Situation 5 
 
 draft and conscription; newspapers jeering at the 
 impotence of the army; self-seeking politicians at 
 the Capitol plotting against the President; hosts 
 of spoilsmen at all points seizing advantage of the 
 covtntry's distress, enriching themselves out of the 
 generous, hard-earned offerings to meet her needs 
 and repair her losses; cabal and favoritism in 
 places of power, perpetrating a thousand injustices 
 upon officers and soldiers in the field; — ^through 
 all this, seen and known and felt, from first to last, 
 these men of the Army of the Potomac, — godKke, 
 if something short of sainthood, — ^this army, on 
 which the heaviest brunt had fallen and was to fall, 
 held up its heart where it could not hold up its 
 head; with loyalty unswerving, obedience tm- 
 questipning, courage that asks not cheer, and 
 devotion out-vying all that life holds dearest or 
 death most terrible. 
 
 This army — ^but what army? Is this identity a 
 thing of substance, or spirit, or of name only? 
 Is this the army which bright as its colors thronged 
 the bridges of the Rapidan on that May morning 
 less than a year before, and vanished into the 
 murk of the Wilderness? Or is it scarcely the 
 half of them; stem-faced by realities, saddened and 
 perchance also strengthened by visions of the lost, 
 the places of these filled by fresh youth's vicarious 
 offering, united as one by the comradeship of arms 
 and strong with the contagion of soul? 
 
 But perhaps this vein of emotion is tiresome. 
 Let us seek relief in figures, — ^which some people 
 regard as the only reliable facts. 
 
6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 The number of men of all arms present for duty 
 equipped in the Army of the Potomac at the 
 opening of Grant's campaign, as shown by the 
 consolidated morning reports of May 4, 1864, was 
 97,162. In the Annual Report of Secretary Stanton, 
 November 22, 1865, this total is stated as 120,384. 
 He evidently takes the niunber as borne upon 
 the roUs in his office, which by no means always 
 agrees with the field lists of. those present for duty 
 equipped, the absent on leave or detail, or other- 
 wise, being usually at a high percentage of the 
 total. The careful compilation of Adjutant-General 
 Drum made from official field retvims at this time 
 gives the number present for duty equipped at 
 97,273 — ^in remarkable agreement with the figures 
 taken in the field.' The number of men available 
 for battle in the Fifth Corps at the start was 
 251695. The character of the fighting in this 
 campaign may be shown, however dimly, by citing 
 here the report of our Corps field hospital for one 
 day only, that of the engagement at Latirel HiU, 
 May 8, 1864: "Admitted to hospital, 3001; of 
 whom 106 were from other corps; 27 Confederates; 
 107 sick. Sent to the rear, 2388 ; fell into the hands 
 of the enemy, 391 ; died in hospital, 121 ; left 206, 
 of whom 126 were able to walk in the morning." 
 
 Or take the totals treated in the field hospital 
 alone for the first nine days of the campaign. 
 Number admitted, 5257; sent to the rear, 4190; 
 died in hospital, 179; feU into hands of the enemy, 
 
 ' Compare the admirable showing of that clear-headed officer. Gen- 
 eral A. A. Himiphreys, Virginia Campaign, Appendix, p. 409. 
 
The Situation 7 
 
 787. Adding to this the number killed outright, 
 not less than 1200, and the "missing," a list we 
 do not like to analyze, not less than 1555, makes a 
 total loss in the Corps of more than 7000 men. And 
 the casualties of the six weeks from the Rapidan 
 to the James bring the total to 16,245. This is 
 3398 more than half the present for duty at the 
 start. 
 
 The records of the Medical Inspector of the 
 Fifth Corps show the number admitted to the 
 field hospitals alone from May 5th to Jvme 19th 
 to have been 11,105 of the Corps, besides many 
 from other corps and not a few Confederates. 
 Reckoning the killed outright as 2200, and the 
 missing as 4000, — ^which is quite within the fact, — 
 makes a total of casualties for this period 17,305. 
 
 Taking another source of information, we find in 
 the Adjutant-General's Report of losses in the 
 Corps as given in the official returns of regiments 
 for the same period, the killed as 1670 ; the wounded 
 10,150; the missing, 4416, — a total of 16,235. 
 Taking the additional wounded given in the field 
 hospital records, 955, — ^who would not appear on 
 the regimental morning reports, — ^we reach the 
 total of 17,190. The difference in these figures is 
 remarkably slight considering that they come from 
 sources so distinct. 
 
 And the restless, fruitless fighting before Peters- 
 burg during the remainder of that year brought the 
 total loss in the Corps up to 18,000, — ^this being 
 abnost a thousand more than two thirds of the 
 bright faces that crossed the Rapidan in the star- 
 
8 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 light of that May morning, now gone down to 
 earth, or beneath it, — ^and yet no end! 
 
 Colonel W. H. Powell in his History of the Fifth 
 Corps, published since the above was written, 
 gives this total loss as 17,861. It does not appear 
 whether he takes into accotmt the losses of the 
 Corps in the assault of June i8th on the saHent 
 covering the Norfolk Railroad and the Jerusalem 
 Plank Road. Owing to the casualties among 
 commanders, the action of that day has never been 
 adequately reported. Colonel Powell had no data 
 on which to base a just account of the overture of 
 Forts Sedgwick and Mahone, — surnamed by the 
 performers Fort Hell and Fort Damnation. 
 
 Glance now at the record of the whole army. 
 Those treated in the field hospitals up to the end 
 of October were officially reported as numbering 
 57,498, and to the end of December, 68,840.^ Some 
 of these, no doubt were cases of sickness, a no less 
 real casualty; but taking the ratio of one fifth the 
 wounded as indicating the ntimber of the killed 
 outright, we reach a total of 59,000 men killed 
 and wounded in this campaign up to October 31, 
 1864. This is to take no accotmt of the "missing, " 
 — a list governed by no law of ratios, but de- 
 termined by the peculiar circumstances of each 
 battle; always a list sad to contemplate, made 
 up by no means of skulkers and deserters, but 
 mostly of those who had been placed by the in- 
 competence of commanders or thrown by the 
 
 " Report of Surgeon McParlin, Medical Director of the Army of the 
 Potomac. 
 
The Situation 9 
 
 vicissitudes of battle into positions where they 
 were helpless, and fell into the hands of the enemy 
 as prisoners, or some too brave spirits that had cut 
 their way through the enemy's lines, or others still 
 who had been left wounded and had crawled away 
 to die. But adding here to the 59,000 killed and 
 wounded given above the 6000 more lost in the 
 various operations around Petersburg up to March 
 28, 1865, and counting the missing at the moderate 
 number of 10,000 for this period, we have the 
 aggregate of 75,000 men cut down in the Army of 
 the Potomac to mark the character of the service 
 and the cost of the campaign thus far. 
 
 If any minds demanding exactitude are troubled 
 at the slight discrepancies in these reports, they 
 may find relief in a passage in the Report of Surgeon 
 Dalton, Chief Medical Officer of Field Hospitals 
 for this campaign. He says of his experience with 
 the treatment of disabled men in the field: 
 
 It is impossible to convey an accurate idea of the num- 
 ber of sick and wounded who have received attention in 
 this hospital, — ^that following the army. Hundreds passed 
 through under circumstances which rendered it impossible 
 to register their names or even accurately estimate their 
 numbers. So unremitting were the calls for professional 
 duty during the first fortnight that it was impossible to 
 prepare morning reports, and it was not until the loth of 
 May that even a numerical report was attempted. From 
 that date the daily reports show that from the i6th of May 
 to the 31st of October, 1864, there have been received into 
 this hospital and treated for at least forty-eight hours, 
 68,540 sick and wounded officers and men.' 
 
 ' Rebellion Records, Serial 60, p. 271, and Serial 67, p. 269. 
 
10 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 I have often thought it would be profitable 
 reading for some if a competent observer wovild 
 recount the scenes at the rear of a fighting army 
 removing from the field after a great battle. A 
 glimpse of this was given at Fredericksbtirg in '62. 
 
 But to throw light on our present topic by one 
 more comparison, let us turn to the records of the 
 Confederates for this campaign. According to 
 the careful investigations of General Humphreys, 
 the nttmber of effective men in Lee's army, including 
 cavalry, at the opening of Grant's campaign, was 
 not less than 62,000; and at the opening of the 
 spring campaign of '65, not less than 57,000. The 
 accuracy of this is undoubted. 
 
 The striking fact is thus established that we had 
 more men killed and wounded in the first six 
 months of Grant's campaign, than Lee had at any 
 one period of it in his whole army. The hammering 
 business had been hard on the hammer. 
 
 If these conclusions seem to rest too much on 
 estimates (although in every case inductions from 
 unquestioned fact), let me offer the solid testimony 
 of General Grant in his official report of November 
 1 , 1864. He gives the casualties in the Army of the 
 Potomac from May 5th to October 30th as: killed 
 10,572; wounded, 53,975; missing, 23,858;— an 
 aggregate of 88,405, a result far more striking than 
 those adduced, and more than confirming the 
 statement of our losses as by far exceeding the 
 whole number of men in Lee's army at any time 
 in this last campaign.' 
 
 ' Rebellion Records, Serial 67, p. 193. 
 
The Situation ii 
 
 I offer no apology for this long siirvey of figures. 
 There is abundant reason for it for the sake of 
 fact, as well as occasion in existing sentiment. 
 Among other interesting reflections, these facts 
 and figures afford useful suggestions to those easily 
 persuaded persons of the South or elsewhere, who 
 please themselves with asserting that our Western 
 armies "did all the fighting." Lorgnettes will get 
 out of order — especially to the cross-eyed. 
 
 The aspect in which the men of our army have 
 been presented has been mainly that of their 
 elementary manhood, the antique virtues that 
 made up valor: courage, fortitude, self-command. 
 It is not possible to separate these from other per- 
 sonal activities of perhaps higher range than the 
 physical; because, in truth, these enter largely 
 into the exercise and administration of manhood. 
 It seems now to be an accepted maxim of war that 
 the "moral" forces — ^meaning by that term what 
 we call the spiritual, pertaining specially to the 
 mind or soul — ^far outweigh the material. Few 
 would now claim that "victory is always with the 
 heaviest battalions." All great contests are in- 
 spired by sentiments, such as justice, pity, faith, 
 loyalty, love, or perhaps some stirring ideal of the 
 rightful and possible good. Even the commoner 
 instincts partake of this nature: self-respect, 
 sanctity of the person, duty and affection towards 
 others, obedience to law, the impulse to the redress 
 of injury, vengeance for outrage. Something of 
 this entered into our motive at first. But deeper 
 tests brought deeper thought. In the strange 
 
12 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 succession of reverses greater reaches were dis- 
 closed; sentiments took on their highest sanction. 
 Our place in human brotherhood, our responsibility 
 not only in duty for Country, but as part in its 
 very being, came impressively into view. Our 
 volunteer soldiers felt that they were part of the 
 very people whose honor and life they were to 
 maintain; they recognized that they were entitled 
 to participate so far as they were able, in the 
 thought and conscience and will of that supreme 
 "people" whose agents and instruments they were 
 in the field of arms. 
 
 This recognition was emphasized by the fact 
 that the men in the field were authorized to vote 
 in the general election of President of the United 
 States, and so to participate directly in the ad- 
 ministration of the government and the deter- 
 mination of public policy. The result of this vote 
 showed how much stronger was their allegiance to 
 principle than even their attachment to McClellan, 
 whose personal popularity in the army was some- 
 thing marvelous. The men voted overwhelmingly 
 for Lincoln. They were tmwiUing that their long 
 fight should be set down as a failtire, even though 
 thus far it seemed so. The fact that this war was 
 in its reach of meaning and consequent effect so 
 much more than what are commonly called "civil 
 wars, " — ^this being a war to test and finally deter- 
 mine the character of the interior constitution and 
 real organic life of this great people, — ^brought into 
 the field an amount of thoughtfiilness and moral 
 reflection not usual in armies. The Roman army 
 
The Situation 13 
 
 could make emperors of generals, but thoughtful 
 minds and generous hearts were wanting to save 
 Rome from the on-coming, invisible doom. 
 
 But volxmteers like ours were held by a con- 
 sciousness not only rooted in instinctive love and 
 habitual reverence but also involving spiritual and 
 moral considerations of the highest order. The 
 motive tmder which they first sprung to the front 
 was an impulse of sentiment, — ^the honor of the 
 old flag and love of Country. All that the former 
 stood for, and all that the latter held tindetermined, 
 they did not stop to question. They wotild settle 
 the fact that they had a country and then consider 
 the reasons and rights of it. There was, indeed, an 
 instinctive apprehension of what was involved in 
 this; but only slowly as the struggle thickened, 
 and they found their antagonists claiming to rest 
 their cause on principles similar to their own, they 
 were led to think more deeply, .to analyze their 
 concrete ideals, to question, to debate, to test 
 loyalty by thoughts of right and reason. We had 
 opportunity to observe the relative merits of 
 Regtilars and Voltmteers. Two rather divergent 
 opinions had been common as to the professional 
 soldiers of the rank and file. One was that they 
 were of inferior grade as men; the other that they 
 were vastly superior as soldiers to any volunteers. 
 It must be allowed that the trained soldier has 
 the merit of habitual submission to discipline, obed- 
 ience to orders, a certain professional pride, and 
 at least a temporary loyalty to the cause in which 
 he is engaged. The superior efficiency of the regu- 
 
14 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 lar over the voltinteer is generally asserted. But 
 this is founded more on conditions than on charac- 
 ter. It derives its acceptance from the fact that 
 volunteers are called out in an exigency, and take 
 the field in haste, without experience or prepara- 
 tion, or even knowledge of the conditions pertain- 
 ing to the art of war. They answer some call of 
 the heart, or constraining moral obligation. But 
 these volunteers may in due time become skilled 
 in all these reqtiisites: discipline, obedience, and 
 even practical knowledge of the many technicali- 
 ties of the art of war. Such veterans may become 
 quite the equals of regulars in the scale of military 
 merit. 
 
 So, on the other hand, the regular may be as 
 intelligent as the citizen soldier, and animated by 
 motives as high. As to the regular officers, there 
 can be no question of their superior qualifications. 
 They are educated for this profession, and specially 
 in all that serves as basis for loyalty to country. 
 As to the rank and file of regular troops, history 
 sometimes refers to them as mercenaries, workers 
 for pay, and they have been stigmatized as "hire- 
 lings." But this is abuse, even of history. The 
 word soldier does indeed mean the man paid for his 
 service instead of being bound to serve by feudal 
 obligation.' But no one can despise such soldiers 
 who remember the conduct of the Swiss Guard of 
 Louis XVI. of France, cowardly forsaken by his 
 
 ' This pay was in the form of the "soldi" (from the Latin "solidus"), 
 the real money, the piece of solid metal, represented to-day in the 
 French "sou." 
 
The Situation 15 
 
 own; but these loyal spirits, for the manhood that 
 was in them and not for pay, stood by him to the 
 last living man of them, whose heroism the proud 
 citizens of their native home have fittingly com- 
 memorated in Thorwaldson's Lion of Lucerne. 
 
 And we certainly held our regulars dear, from 
 long association, and could only speak their name 
 with honor when we thought of the desperate 
 charge down from the Round Tops of Gettysburg 
 into the maelstrom of death swirling around, the 
 "Devil's Den," from which but half their numbers 
 emerged, and these so wrought upon that they 
 were soon after released from service in the field 
 to recover strength. 
 
 These veterans of ours were the equals of regulars 
 even if they received a nominal pay; equals in dis- 
 cipline, in knowledge, skill, and valor. They were 
 superior in that they represented the homes and 
 ideals of the country, and not only knew what they 
 were fighting for but also held it dear. 
 
 The same tendency of thought and feeling was, 
 no doubt, in the hearts of ovu- adversaries, although 
 their loyalty seems to have been held longer by 
 the primal instincts. This appeared not merely in 
 the fervid exhortations of commanders and officials, 
 but in the prevailing spirit of the men in the ranks, 
 with whom we had occasional conference across the 
 picket lines, or in brief interviews with prisoners. 
 The prime motive with these men was no doubt, 
 like ours, grounded in the instincts of manhood. 
 They sprang to arms for the vindication of what 
 they had been accustomed to regard as their rights 
 
i6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 by nature and law. By struggling and sufEering 
 for the cause this thought was rather intensified 
 than broadened. But in these lulls reflection 
 began to enlarge vision. This matter of rights and 
 duties presents itself, as it were, in concentric 
 spheres, within which polarities are reversed as 
 values rise. The right to property must yield 
 to the right to life; individual happiness must be 
 subordinated to the general well-being; duty to 
 country must outweigh all the narrower demands 
 of self-interest. So the sight of "the old flag," 
 which stood for the guaranty of highest hitman 
 rights, and which they were now striving to beat 
 down in defeat and dishonor, must have affected 
 their sober thoughts. There was no little evidence 
 of this as the winter and the weary siege wore on. 
 It came to our knowledge in the early months of 
 the new year that heavy desertions were going on 
 every day in Lee's army, — especially among the 
 Virginians. We had reason to believe that it was 
 the personal magnetism of their great commander 
 that kept alive the spirit of that brave army. The 
 chivalrous sense of personal loyalty was strong with 
 those men. 
 
 Our acquaintance had been peculiarly intimate 
 and deep, and we had for them a strong personal 
 fegard. The "causes" were wide apart, but the 
 manhood was the same. We had occasion to ob- 
 serve their religious character. More free thought 
 and wider range of code no doubt prevailed in our 
 Northern army; but what we are accustomed to 
 call simple, personal piety was more manifest in 
 
The Situation 17 
 
 the Confederate ranks than in ours. Not pre- 
 suming to estimate the influence of particular cases 
 of higher officers, like Stonewall Jackson or Gen- 
 eral Howard, making prominent their religious 
 principles and proclivities, but fully recognizing 
 the general religious character of most of the 
 officers and men from our Northern homes, it must 
 be admitted that the expression of reUgious senti- 
 ment and habit was more common and more earn- 
 est in the Confederate camp than in ours. 
 
 In one thing we took "the touch of elbow." It 
 was no uncommon incident that from close oppos- 
 ing bivouacs and across hushed breastworks at 
 evening voices of prayer from over the way would 
 stir our hearts, and floating songs of love and 
 praise be caught up and broadened into a mighty 
 and thrilling chorus by our men softening down in 
 cadences like enfolding wings. Such moments 
 were surely a "Truce of God." 
 
 I have said the men kept up heart. So they did, 
 — exactly that. It was a certain loyalty of soul, 
 rather than persistence of vital energies. The 
 experiences which had hardened the spiritual nerve, 
 had relaxed the physical fiber. The direct effects 
 of bodily over-strain reach to the nervous centers 
 and the boundaries of spirit. Exhausting forced 
 marches, through choking dust, burning suns, sti- 
 fling heat even in the shade, swampy bivouacs, ma- 
 larious airs laden with the off-castings of rotting 
 vegetation, or worse at times, from innumerable 
 bodies of men and animals dead or living; strange 
 forms of sickness, ttnexampled and irremediable, 
 
i8 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 experiences borne only by stubborn patience or 
 heroic pride, — such things tell at last. Then the 
 battles, horrible scenes, shocking the senses, bur- 
 rowing in memory to live again in dreams and 
 haunting visions, all these things together work 
 upon the inner, vital, or spiritual forces which re- 
 late us to the real persistent substance — ^whether 
 ethereal or of some yet finer form not yet dreamed 
 of in our philosophy. 
 
 But men are made of mind and soul as well as 
 body. We deal not only with exercises of the 
 senses, but with deeper consciousness; affections, 
 beliefs, ideals, conceptions of causes and effects, 
 relations and analogies, and even conjectures of a 
 possible order and organization different from what 
 we experience in the present world of sense. All 
 these powers and workings have part in the make- 
 up of manhood. Men are not machines; although 
 it is said the discipline of army life tends to make 
 them such, and that this is essential to their ef- 
 ficiency. A remark which needs to be set in larger 
 light. 
 
 The men of the rank and file in our army of 
 volunteers before Petersburg besides being seasoned 
 soldiers were endowed and susceptible according to 
 their spiritual measure. Their life was not merely 
 in their own experiences but in larger sympathies. 
 Their environment, which is thought to determine 
 character so largely, consisted for them not only in 
 material things but also much in memories and 
 shadowings. Things were remnants and reminders. 
 Lines stood thinner; circles ever narrowing. Corps 
 
The Situation 19 
 
 fought down to divisions; divisions to brigades; 
 these again broken and the shattered regiments 
 consolidated under the token and auspices of their 
 States, — as if reverting to their birthright, and 
 being ' ' gathered to their fathers. ' ' Old flags, — ^yes, 
 but crowded together not by on-rush to battle, 
 but by thinning ranks bringing the dear more near. 
 Then the vacant places of lost comrades, seen as 
 "an aching void" both as to fact and suggestion. 
 And even the coming in of new, fresh faces was 
 not without its cast of shadow. The officers, too, 
 who had gone down were of the best known, 
 trusted, and beloved. What has gone takes some- 
 thing with it, and when this is of the dear, nothing 
 can fiJl the place. All the changes touched the 
 border of sorrows. 
 
 The strength of great memories, pride of historic 
 continuity, unfailing loyalty of purpose and resolve 
 held these men together in unity of form and spirit. 
 But there seemed some slackening of the old nerve 
 and verve; and service was sustained more from 
 the habit of obedience and instinct of duty, than 
 with that sympathetic intuition which inspires 
 men to exceed the Uteral of orders or of obligations. 
 
 Curious people often ask the question whether 
 in battle we are not affected by fear, so that our 
 actions are influenced by it; and some are prompt 
 to answer, "Yes, surely we are, and -anybody who 
 denies it is a braggart or a liar." I say to such, 
 "Speak for yourselves." A soldier has something 
 else to think about. Most men at the first, or at 
 some tragic moment, are aware of the present peril, 
 
20 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 and perhaps flinch a little by an instinct of nature 
 and sometimes accept the foregoing confession, — ■ 
 as when I have seen men pin their names to their 
 breasts that they may not be buried unknown. 
 But any action following the motive of fear is rare, 
 — ^for sometimes I have seen men rushing to the 
 front in a terrific fire, "to have it over with." 
 
 But, as a rule, men stand up from one motive 
 or another — ^simple manhood, force of discipline, 
 pride, love, or bond of comradeship — "Here is 
 Bill; I will go or stay where he does." And an 
 officer is so absorbed by the sense of responsibiHty 
 for his men, for his cause, or for the fight that 
 the thought of personal peril has no place what- 
 ever in governing his actions. The instinct to 
 seek safety is overcome by the instinct of honor. 
 
 There are exceptions. This is the rule and law of 
 manhood: fearlessness in the face of all lesser 
 issues because he has faced the greater — ^the 
 commanding one. 
 
 This exposition of the state of mind and body 
 among ottr officers and men in the later operations 
 along the Petersburg lines may help to find a 
 reason for their failure. For instance, the fiasco 
 of the mine explosion of July 30th, where well- 
 laid plans and costly and toilsome labors were 
 brought to shameful disaster through lack of 
 earnest co-operation, and strange lethargy of 
 participants. For another instance, the vmex- 
 ampled reverses of our renowned Second Corps at 
 Ream's Station, August 24th, where, after every 
 purpose and prospect of success, these veterans 
 
The Situation 21 
 
 were quickly driven from their entrenchments, 
 even abandoning their guns, — conduct contrary 
 to their habit and contradictory of their character. 
 
 But these were exceptional even if illustrative 
 cases. Along our lines reigned a patient fortitude, 
 a waiting expectation, unswerving loyalty, that 
 kind of faith which is the "evidence of things 
 unseen. " 
 
 Among these men were some doubly deserving — 
 comrades whom we thought lost, bravely returning. 
 Many of those earlier wounded, or sickened, and 
 s^nt to general hospital, proving to be not utterly 
 disabled, and scorning the plea of the poltroon, 
 came back to their appointed place. So others, too, 
 with like spirit, from the starving, wasting, and 
 wearing experience of prisons, passing though the 
 valley of the shadow of death, came to answer 
 again the names that honored oiir roll-call, — those 
 who covild stand up to do it. 
 
 Such were the remnants of that great company 
 of heroic souls named the Army of the Potomac. 
 Knowing full well the meaning of such words as 
 hardship and suffering, facing unknown fields of 
 sorrows yet to come, they stood fast by their 
 consecration, offering all there is in manhood for the 
 sake of what is best in man. If sometimes a 
 shadow passes over such spirits, it needs neither 
 confession nor apology. 
 
 Within a short time now the term of enlistment 
 of not a few regiments had expired, and they were 
 mustered out of service with honor. It was a time 
 when they were sorely needed; but we can scarcely 
 
22 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 blame those who thought duty did not call them 
 to prolong their experiences. Many, however, 
 straightway enlisted in other regiments, new or old, 
 and thus rendered a double service — ^material 
 force and inspiring example. 
 
 In- some instances whole regiments had re- 
 enlisted, under the old name or a new one. Such 
 were five noble Pennsylvania regiments of my 
 ■own brigade of June, 1 864. Remnants of regiments 
 also, left from casualties of the field or by term of 
 enlistment, were consolidated into one, named and 
 numbered by its State order. Such were the ist 
 Maine Veterans, made up of the 5th, 6th, and 7th, 
 of glorious record. 
 
 Others, too, had come in to replace and reinforce, 
 with like brave spirit, and perhaps with severer 
 test, — ^heavy artillery regiments, full to the maxi- 
 mum in numbers, from important positions in the 
 rear, as the defenses of Washington, and not ex- 
 pecting to be called to the front. With the ad- 
 vantage of military discipline and acclimatization, 
 their ponderous lines rolled on the astonished foe, 
 with swift passages to glorious death and undying 
 fame. Witness the action of the ist Maine Heavy 
 Artillery, losing in one fight at Spottsylvania 264 
 men, and again more than 600 in stern obedience to 
 orders which should not have been given in the first 
 futile charge on the lines of Petersburg. 
 
 New regiments of infantry also came in, neces- 
 sarily assigned to duty at the front, — ^high hearts, 
 brave spirits; some of them rushed into the field 
 without instruction in arms or training in practice 
 
The Situation 23 
 
 of endurance, the fiber of their bodies for a time 
 not equal to the sincerity of their resolution. But 
 with the quickening of sharp demand and com- 
 pelling need, spirit soon transformed body to its 
 likeness, and meantime cheered and braced other 
 hearts beating their old rhythm beneath the iron 
 breasts of veterans. 
 
 No jeering now for newness and niceness; but 
 silent welcome, of respect and almost reverence, 
 seeing that the young men had come willingly at 
 such a time to such a front. The last two years had 
 brought prismatic colors down to plain monotone. 
 Names of things were charged with deeper defini- 
 tions. War was no longer a holiday excursion; it 
 was "hard-shelled " business; not maturing in three 
 months, nor nine, nor twelve, nor twenty-four. 
 And the way of it was more bitter than the end. 
 The regiments passing to the front marched not 
 between festoons of ladies' smiles and waving 
 handkerchiefs, thrown kisses and banner presenta- 
 tions. They were looked upon sadly and in a certain 
 awe, as those that had taken on themselves a doom. 
 The muster roUs on which the name and oath 
 were written were pledges of honor, — ^redeemable 
 at the gates of death. And they who went up to 
 them, knowing this, are on the lists of heroes. 
 
 It is true not all who came in now were strictly 
 "volunteers." Some may have enlisted from 
 shame of staying comfortably at home while manly 
 men were at the front. Some may have preferred 
 this to standing "draft" under terrors of the lot; 
 for so the free will is sometimes botind. And others 
 
24 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 may have been persuaded by the large local boun- 
 ties, which the stern realities adverted to above 
 induced many loud loyalists to offer to "substi- 
 tutes," to whom life, liberty, and the ptirsuit of 
 happiness were not quite so dear. Glory had come 
 to exemplify the altrtiistic virtues, and in such 
 honor as "dying for your covintry," self -regarding 
 men scriptixrally "preferred one another ! 
 
 But there were those coming last who represented 
 the heroism of homes. For wives, who had early 
 offered the fathers of their children, house-bonds of 
 human well-being, as sacrifices for their country's 
 redemption, sent now their sons, to share their 
 father's honor and perchance his grave. Mothers, 
 who had given their first-bom, held not back their 
 youngest now; the strongest first, and then the 
 dearest. And the converse of this, the father fol- 
 lowing the son. Well might the lip of veteran quiver 
 as his quick eye, scanning a squad of newcomers, 
 caught the figure of some father, gray and grim, 
 still so erect and eagle-eyed, straining for eyery 
 semblance of youth, that he might be permitted 
 to stand beside his boy whom he could not let 
 come alone. Nor is this sympathy unmarked in 
 higher grades. What has come over the spirit of 
 that stern officer, pushing his column with relent- 
 less energy on the terrible forced march, that with 
 furtive side-look as if half -ashamed, he draws the 
 back of his sword-hand across his compressed eye- 
 lids, like the swift sign of the cross over the face of 
 a prayer? He has turned in his saddle to order the 
 ambulance, or his own headquarters' wagon to 
 
The Situation 25 
 
 pick up from the trodden wayside some fallen, 
 fainting boy, overweighted by the heavy armor of 
 his cotmtry's defense, whose soul has carried him 
 already far beyond his body's strength. Some 
 home-loved boy; and so soon, so nearly lost! God 
 help us all! 
 
 The exercise of thought that had been invited 
 and sanctioned natiurally fostered indulgence in 
 some "free thinking." Some liberties were taken 
 in canvassing the merits not only of commanders 
 but rather more freely of campaigns, — ^particu- 
 larly this reductio ad ahsurdum of the siege of 
 Petersburg. And they would have been something 
 less than rational human beings if they did not 
 indulge in some criticisms. Too free expression of 
 unfavorable opinion, it is true, might render one 
 liable to the counter charge of conduct to "the 
 prejudice of good order and military discipline." 
 But wisdom was also brought to use. Our soldiers 
 had well learned the lesson that it is sometimes 
 necessary to reverse the maxim of public law, and 
 subordinate civil rights to military rules. 
 
 Evil-minded people were trying to make our 
 men believe that Grant and Lincoln were making 
 this long delay in front of Petersburg in order to 
 secure their continuance in office. But this was 
 an outrage upon those noble characters, and an 
 insult to the common sense of every man among us. 
 We knew that the surest way for otir high officials 
 to hold their place was by no means to court delay, 
 but to strike a quick, bold blow at the enemy. 
 
 Grant's change of base from the Rappahannock 
 
26 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 to the James, and his immediate objective from 
 the front of Richmond to its rear by way of Peters- 
 burg, called for no adverse criticism. There were 
 deep-felt reasons for acqmescence. Nor could it 
 be fairly criticized on purely military grounds. 
 Although technically a change of base, it was not a 
 change in his grand purpose, — "to fight it out on 
 this line if it takes all stimmer." That meant 
 there was to be no retreating. And this might 
 justly be considered a master stroke of grand tactics 
 in the continuous movement to turn Lee's right, 
 and also cut his communications. When we under- 
 stood the purpose of this move we beheved it to be 
 good tactics, and we took it up with hope and 
 cheer. Sober second thought justified the first 
 impression. It was a well-planned and well-exe- 
 cuted movement- Our army was skilfully with- 
 drawn from the front of a watchful and active 
 enemy, and the main body of our army was before 
 Petersburg before Lee knew it had crossed the 
 James. The first blow was well delivered; but a 
 series of shortcomings, for which it must be said 
 neither the men nor their immediate commanders 
 were responsible, brought all to nought. Succes- 
 sive assaults on the enemy's lines were made as 
 corps after corps extended leftward; but gallant 
 fighting left little to' show but its cost. Especially 
 did we hold in mind the last of these made by the 
 Fifth Corps on the second day, when an assault 
 was ordered, by my fine veteran Brigade on the 
 strong entrenchments at Rives' Salient command- 
 ing the important avenue of communication, the 
 
The Situation 27 
 
 Norfolk Railroad and Jerusalem Plank Road. 
 By this time it was too late; all Lee's army were 
 up and entrenched. We encountered a far out- 
 numbering force of veteran troops well entrenched 
 and a cross-fire of twenty guns in earthworks 
 planted with forethought and skill. Desperate 
 valor could accomplish nothing but its own demon- 
 stration. Otir veterans were hurled back over the 
 stricken field, or left upon it — I, too, proud witness 
 and sharer of their fate. I am not of Virginia 
 blood; she is of mine. So ended the evening of 
 the second day. And the army sat down to that 
 ten months' symposium, from which twenty 
 thousand men never rose. 
 
 The development of this campaign led many to 
 compare Grant with McClellan. They marched 
 their armies over m.uch the same ground, with 
 much the same result. Only McClellan was 
 brought to Washington; Grant was permitted to 
 remain at City Point and the Appomattox. The 
 rumor ran that McClellan had also proposed to cut 
 across the James and around Lee's flank. Many 
 still believed in his soldiership, but broader ele- 
 ments now entered into the estimate. Something 
 in the nature of the man and something in his 
 environment caused his failure. With great or- 
 ganizing power, he failed in practical application. 
 The realities of war seemed to daze him. He 
 lacked dash, resolution; he hesitated to seize the 
 golden moment, to profit by his own openings, to 
 press his advantage, to solve doubt by daring. 
 With all that marvelous magnetism which won the 
 
28 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 love and enthusiasm of his subordinates, he lacked 
 the skill, or the will, to gain the sympathy of his 
 superiors. It is as much the requisite in general- 
 ship to secure the confidence and co-operation of 
 the Government as to command armies and over 
 come opposing force. It was unfortunate for him, 
 also, that he allowed himself to be drawn into 
 pohtics, which paid him in its own kind. The fore- 
 shadowing thought of this created in his mind a 
 "double objective," which confused his purpose 
 and benumbed his fighting energy as against 
 possible fellow citizens. 
 
 But many circtimstances were against him. 
 Few seemed to realize that this was war. And 
 many who influenced his surroundings thought 
 they knew as much of war as he. At that time the 
 North was in a craze; nobody would accept the 
 suggestion that it would be a long and costly task 
 to put down the rebellion, or even to break up the 
 Southern army. The North was as arbitrary as 
 the South was arrogant. Strong in its conviction 
 of right, proud of its sponsorship for the old flag; 
 stung, too, by the sharp rebuff to its assumption 
 and its authority, the North did not count patience 
 as the chief of virtues. Its cry was "On to Rich- 
 mond!" to captiire the rebel capital so impudently 
 set up in face of our own, and thus wipe out that 
 pretended token of independence and sovereignty 
 which gave pretext for foreign recognition. For 
 this had become an element in the contest, — ^the 
 hostility of the French Emperor, and the ' ' nobility ' ' 
 of England with difficulty held back from recogniz- 
 
The Situation 29 
 
 ing the Southern Confederacy through the moral 
 courage of John Bright and the royal wisdom of the 
 Queen and Prince Consort of England. 
 
 The impatience of the North is perhaps to be 
 pardoned for the reason of its impelling motive; 
 but it demanded of General McClellan impossibili- 
 ties. And these were created quite as much by 
 forces in his rear as by those in his front. 
 
 As for Grant, he was like Thor, the hammerer; 
 striking blow after blow, intent on his purpose to 
 beat his way through, somewhat reckless of the 
 cost. Yet he was the first one of our commanders 
 who dared to pursue his policy of delay without 
 apology or fear of overruling. He made it a con- 
 dition of his acceptancy of the chief command that 
 he should not be interfered with from Washington. 
 That gave him more freedom and "discretion" 
 than any of his predecessors. He had somehow, 
 with all his modesty, the rare faculty of controlling 
 his superiors as well as his subordinates. He out- 
 faced Stanton, captivated the President, and even 
 compelled acquiescence or silence from that dread 
 source of paralyzing power, — ^the Congressional 
 Committee on the conduct of the war. 
 
 The Government and the country had to exer- 
 cise patience, — ^with us. no doubt, and even with 
 General Grant. He had to exercise it also, with 
 himself. It must have been a sore trial to his 
 pride, and a measure very foreign to his tempera- 
 ment to have to sit down so long before Petersburg; 
 to abandon the tactics of main force and commence 
 a series of sporadic harassments on the enemy's 
 
30 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 weak spots, and adopt for his main strategic plan 
 the attempt to tire and starve him out. That was 
 what things looked like now. There was all the 
 while the ever increasing risk that, with this seeming 
 long irresolution, influences from within might 
 induce the cotintry to concession and compromise 
 at cost of the vital point of the whole contention, 
 the supremacy of its proclaimed ideal, — ^the guar- 
 anty of human rights. 
 
 We all had to learn the bitter but salutary lesson, 
 taught by adversity and humiliation, — ^that instant 
 advantage is not always lasting achievement; that 
 mere good intentions will not win victories, and 
 that the conditions and cost of undertakings 
 must be considered and prepared for body and 
 spirit. We had the discipline of adversity. We 
 found patience an active force and not merely an 
 endurance of suffering. The brave Saint Paul 
 declares that "tribulation worketh patience; and 
 patience experience ; and experience hope. " But we 
 found things turned a little otherwise; experience 
 demanded patience, and both sorely tried hope. 
 Those who believe there is a divine appointment or 
 mysterious overruling purpose in the prolonged 
 struggles of human history might see in these 
 repeated reverses of oiirs an intimation that greater 
 things were in issue here than the taking of Peters- 
 burg or Richmond, or the destruction of Lee's 
 army, or even the quick overthrow of the rebel- 
 lion. Shovild our success come according to our 
 hopes there might be danger of too ready a com- 
 promise with the forces that had brought on the 
 
The Situation 31 
 
 wax, and so the winnowings of life and death 
 must go on till the troubles be sifted to the 
 core. Lincoln's proclamation, though looked 
 upon by our old-school oflScers as unadvised 
 and unwarranted by the Constitution, had sent 
 thoughts wider and higher than the range of 
 army regulations or text-books of the law. It 
 was a time of travail with the new birth of the 
 nation. Time and tide wait for no man; but man 
 must wait for them. 
 
 With all Grant's reticence, we felt sure that he 
 was preparing some great movement, and this 
 must be still to the left, to cut Lee's communica- 
 tions and envelop his existing lines, or as the 
 wiseacres said, to take Richmond in something 
 like Joshua's way with Jericho, — sounding trum- 
 pets aU around its walls. We had, indeed, been 
 rehearsing for this performance from time to time 
 all winter, and had already cut several of Lee's 
 best communications. Our established line now 
 extended some sixteen miles. Occasional dashes 
 had broken in upon them for some four or five 
 miles farther westward, to near Burgess' Mill on 
 Hatcher's Run, at the junction of the Boydton 
 Plank Road and the White Oak Road; but these 
 points could not be strongly held by us, and were 
 more strongly guarded by the enemy, as almost 
 their last avenue of sea-coast communication. Lee 
 had two railroads: the Richmond and Danville, 
 leading to important connections in North Caro- 
 lina; and the Petersburg and Lynchburg, known to 
 us as the "Southside," making a junction with the 
 
32 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 former at Burkeville, about fifty miles from Peters- 
 burg, as also from Richmond. 
 
 On our part, as we gained ground we had un- 
 rolled a military railroad, up hill and down, with- 
 out much grading, and hence exhibiting some 
 remarkable exploits in momenttun of mind and 
 machinery. This terminated at the Vaughan Road 
 on the north branch of Rowanty Creek. 
 
 Meantime Sherman had made his masterly 
 march from the Great River to the Sea, and the 
 even more masterly movement north to Goulds- 
 boro. North Carolina, where with his alert and 
 dashing army he threatened Lee's sea communica- 
 tion and also the flank and rear of his position. It 
 was a curious element in the situation that the 
 astute Confederate General "Joe Johnston" should 
 come in north of Sherman and interpose his army 
 between Sherman's and ours. This sort of "vol- 
 taic pile" generated some queer currents of 
 conjecture and apprehension. Disquieting rumors 
 came across the picket lines that Johnston was 
 coming up to strike our flank and rear, and thus 
 between his army and Lee's we should be caught 
 in the jaws of a leviathan. But we believed 
 Sherman wotdd give Johnston something else to do. 
 We were more troubled by the rumor that Lee, 
 presuming on our inertness, was preparing to make 
 a master movement; to occupy our attention by 
 feints in front while he should withdraw his main 
 army, pass around our left and join Johnston, 
 knock Sherman out, then turn back and attend to 
 the "sick Hon" of the Army of the Potomac. 
 
The Situation 33 
 
 Grant was evidently anxious lest Lee should 
 manage to get away from our front and effect a 
 junction with Johnston for some bold stroke. 
 That would be a shame for us. We would far 
 rather fight, even if unsuccessful as usual. Then 
 we were much annoyed by rumors coming around 
 from Washington, that Sherman was coming up 
 with his power and prestige to take our business 
 out of our hands and the glory of success to his 
 army. But in the depth of our doubts and appre- 
 hension word came that Grant had brought Sher- 
 man to a conference at his headquarters, and had 
 invited Sheridan as a participant, on the evening of 
 March 27th, and we knew now that something was 
 to be done on a grand scale. 
 
 Soon came the thrilling General Order. It 
 announced one more leftward movement, but it 
 woke new courage and inspired confidence. Its 
 very style and manner was new. It seemed to 
 take us all into confidential relations with the 
 commander; the whole object and plan set forth 
 in a manner clear, circumstantial, and complete, 
 so that each subordinate knew the part he was 
 expected to take. The colonels, on whom the 
 brunt of battle so heavily falls, felt that they were 
 appreciated, and they were quickened in soldierly 
 pride and manly resolution. And the yotinger 
 generals, who had become veterans in experience, 
 especially in the practical working of the felicitous 
 provision in the Army Regulations that, while their 
 proper position is habitually a hundred and fifty 
 yards in rear of the center of their commands, they 
 
34 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 may, nevertheless, in time of action, "go to any 
 place where they deem their presence necessary," 
 and had found that was anywhere but in the rear, 
 took new assurance now that permission was 
 expressly given that when they got the enemy 
 to "going" they might "push things" at their 
 discretion. 
 
 So when on the last evening of the old dispensa- 
 tion we prepared to break camp before the dawn, 
 silently and unseen, without blast of bugle or 
 blow of axe, or sight of fire to betray unusual move- 
 ments to the ever watchful foe so near, and each 
 one who could dashed off his little farewell message 
 home, there was in his heart a strange mingHng of 
 emotion, the vision of a great joy, in which, per- 
 haps, he was to lie silent and apart, a little shadow 
 on the earth, but overhead a great light filling the 
 sky. This lifted him to the surpassing joy that, 
 however it should be with him, his work and worth 
 had entered into the cotintry's hfe and honor. 
 
 Now the solemn notes of the last tattoo rang 
 "Lights out!" through the deepening shades, 
 echoed from point to point of wooded hill and 
 earth-piled parapet, floating away northward over 
 the awful powers lying hushed beneath the twi- 
 light semblance of peace, — northward, toward the 
 homes our hearts reached after, the lingering echoes 
 sweeping the heartstrings as they died away. But 
 the same heart told that the evening bugle would 
 not sound "Lights out!" again till the nights of 
 the tremendous tragedy were over ; that whatever 
 of him or his should be of the returning, never 
 
The Situation 35 
 
 wotdd return that awful, long repeated scene: two 
 armies, battered, broken, blood-bathed from brow 
 to foot, but still face to face in unconquerable re- 
 solve. No, but in the far sky another vision: calm 
 in triumph, thinking not of mastery over man, but 
 of right for all; and in God's heaven the old flag 
 redeemed from shame and scorn, standing for a re- 
 generated people and a new covenant of brotherly 
 love for the world's hereafter. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE OVERTURE 
 
 GRANT'S general plan involved an alterna- 
 tive: to cut Lee's communications or turn 
 the right flank of his entrenched Kne, and 
 in case of the success of either, to take Petersburg 
 by direct front attack. To carry out this plan he 
 appointed Sheridan with the cavalry of the Army 
 of the Shenandoah, two divisions, tmder General 
 Merritt, and the cavalry division now commanded 
 by General Crook, formerly belonging to the 
 Army of the Potomac. He was to have the 
 Fifth Corps as infantry support, to be followed, if 
 necessary, by the Second Corps. General Meade, 
 commanding the Army of the Potomac, was to 
 accompany the movement. The former places 
 of these corps on the left of otir entrenchments 
 before Petersburg, were to be taken by troops of 
 the Army of the James. On the right of these, our 
 Sixth and Ninth Corps were to hold their old posi- 
 tions in front of Petersbtirg, ready to bteak through 
 the enemy's works if they should be stripped some- 
 what of troops by the necessity of meeting our 
 assavilt on their right. 
 
 36 
 
The Overture 37 
 
 The scope of Grant's intentions may be tinder- 
 stood from an extract from his orders to Sheridan, 
 March 28, 1865: 
 
 The Fifth Army Corps will move by the Vaughan 
 Road at three a.m. to-morrow morning. The Second 
 moves at about nine a.m. . . . Move your cavalry at as 
 early an hour as you can, . . . and passing to or through 
 Dinwiddie, reach the right and rear of the enemy as soon 
 as you can. It is not the intention to attack the enemy 
 in his entrenched position, but to force him out, if possible. 
 Shovild he come out and attack us, or get himself where he 
 can be attacked, move in with your entire force in your 
 own way, and with full reliance that the army will engage 
 or follow the enemy as circumstances will dictate. I shall 
 be on the field, and will probably be able to communicate 
 with you. Should I not do so, and you find that the ene- 
 my keeps within his main entrenched line, you may cut loose 
 and push for the Danville Road. If you find it practicable, 
 I would like you to cross the Southside Road between 
 Petersburg and Burkesville, and destroy it to some ex- 
 tent. . . . After having accomplished the destruction of 
 the two railroads, which are now the only avenues of sup- 
 ply to Lee's army, you may return to this army or go on 
 into North Carolina and join General Sherman. . . . 
 
 General Grant evidently intended to rely more 
 on tactics than strategy in this opening. In his 
 personal letter to General Sherman, of March 226., 
 giving the details of his plans for Sheridan's move- 
 ment, he adds: "I shall start out with no distinct 
 view, ftirther than holding Lee's forces from follow- 
 ing Sheridan. But I shall be along myself, and 
 will take advantage of anything that turns up. " 
 
 The general plan was that Sherman should work 
 
38 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 his way up to Burkesville, and thus cut off Lee's 
 communications, and force him to come out of his 
 entrenchments and fight on equal terms. Sher- 
 man says he and General Grant expected that one 
 of them would have to fight one more bloody battle. 
 He also makes the characteristic remark that his 
 army at Goldsboro was strong enough to fight Lee's 
 army and Johnston's combined, if Grant wotild 
 come up within a day or two.' 
 
 It will be observed that we had abundance of 
 commanders independent among each other, — 
 Sheridan, Meade, and Ord commanding the Army 
 of the James, subordinate only to Grant who was 
 present in the field. The result of this the sequel 
 will show. 
 
 We were aU good friends, — ^those who were to 
 constitute the turning column. Warren of our 
 Fifth Corps had once commanded the Second; 
 Humphreys of the Second had formerly com- 
 manded a division in the Fifth; Miles, division 
 commander in the Second, had won his spurs in the 
 Fifth; Meade, commanding the army, had been 
 corps commander of the Fifth. Crook's cavalry 
 division of our army, now about to go to Sheridan, 
 had been our pet and pride; Sheridan was an object 
 of admiration and awe. 
 
 " Sherman's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 325. This seems to imply a reflection 
 on the fighting qualities of the Army of the Potomac, as at that time 
 Sherman's army did not exceed in number the Army of the Potomac 
 but by six thousand men. But it must be remembered that the Army 
 of the Potomac confronted an enemy covered by entrenched works for 
 sixteen miles, — a circumstance which gave the Confederates the great 
 advantage of three to one in effective nvunbers. 
 
The Overture 39 
 
 Of the Fifth Corps, the division commanders of 
 the First and Second were Griffin and Ayres of the 
 regtilar artillery, and veterans of the Mexican War, 
 who had served with their batteries in the Fifth 
 Corps early in its career; and Crawford of the 
 Third, who was with Anderson at Fort Sumter, was 
 identified with the Pennsylvania Reserves, whose 
 whole history was closely connected with this 
 Corps. 
 
 As for the First Division, the morning report 
 for March 29, 1865, showed 6547 men present for 
 duty. This number being on various duty else- 
 where or sick in hospital was 4000 short of its full 
 ranks. The remnants of the old First Division 
 had been consolidated into the Third Brigade, 
 formerly my own, consisting of about 3000 men, 
 commanded by the able General Joseph J. Bartlett 
 of the Sixth Corps. The Second Brigade, about 
 1750, commanded by the experienced and con- 
 scientious Colonel Edgar M. Gregory, of the 91st 
 Pennsylvania Volunteers, Brevet Brigadier-General 
 of Volunteers, consisted of three new regiments 
 from New York, the 187th, the i88th, and 189th, 
 new regiments but mostly old soldiers. My own 
 brigade, the First, consisting of like new regiments, 
 had about 450 short of its normal numbers, mus- 
 tering 1750 men for duty. These regiments were 
 the 198th Pennsylvania, composed of fourteen full 
 companies, being a special command for a veteran 
 and brave officer, Colonel Horatio G. Sickel, Brevet 
 Brigadier-General, and the 185th New York, a 
 noble body of men of high capability and character, 
 
40 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 and a well-disciplined regiment now commanded by 
 Colonel Gustave Sniper, an able man and thorough 
 soldier. 
 
 Gregory and Sickel had both ranked me formerly 
 as Colonels, but accepted the new relations with 
 sincerity and utmost courtesy. 
 
 The ground about to be traversed by us is flat 
 and swampy, and cut up by sluggish streams which, 
 after every rain, become nearly impassable. The 
 soil is a mixture of clay and sand, quite apt in wet 
 weather to take the character of sticky mire or of 
 quicksands. The principal roads for heavy travel 
 have to be corduroyed or overlaid with plank. The 
 streams for the most part find their way south- 
 easterly into the tributaries of the Chowan River. 
 Some, however, flow northeasterly into the waters 
 of the Appomattox. Our available route was along 
 the divide of these waters. 
 
 The principal road leading out westerly from 
 Petersburg is the Boydton Plank Road, for the 
 first ten miles nearly parallel with the Appomattox, 
 and distant from it from three to six miles. The 
 Southside Railroad is between the Boydton Road 
 and the river. South of the Boydton is the 
 Vaughan Road; the first section lying in rear of 
 our main entrenchments, but from ovir extreme left 
 at Hatcher's Run inclining towards the Boydton 
 Road, being only two miles distant from it at 
 Dinwiddle Court House. Five miles east of this 
 place the Quaker Road, called by persons of 
 another mood, the "Military Road," crosses the 
 Vaughan and leads northerly into the Boydton 
 
The Overture 41 
 
 Road midway between Hatcher's Run and Gravel- 
 ly Run, which at this junction became Rowanty 
 Creek. 
 
 A mile above the intersection of the Quaker Road 
 with the Boydton is the White Oak Road, leading 
 off from the Boydton at right angles westerly, 
 following the ridges between the small streams and 
 branches forming the headwaters of Hatcher's 
 and Gravelly Runs, through and beyond the 
 "Five Forks." This is a meeting-place of roads, 
 the principal of which, called the Ford Road, 
 crosses the White Oak at a right angle, leading 
 from a station on the Southside Railroad, three 
 miles north, to Dinwiddle Court House, six miles 
 south. 
 
 The enemy's main line of entrenchments west 
 from Petersburg covered the important Boydton 
 Plank Road, but only so far as Hatcher's Run, 
 where at Burgess' Mill their entrenchments leave 
 this and follow the White Oak Road for some two 
 mUes, and then cross it, turning to the north and 
 following the Claiborne Road, which leads to 
 Sutherland's Station on the Southside Railroad ten 
 miles distant from Petersburg, covering this road 
 till it strikes Hatcher's Run about a mile higher up. 
 This "rettim" northerly forms the extreme right 
 of the enemy's entrenched line. 
 
 When the instructions for this campaign reached 
 us, all were animated with confidence of quick 
 success. If Lee's lines before Petersburg were 
 held in place, it would be easy work to cut his com- 
 mtinications, turn his right, and roll him back upon 
 
42 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Petersburg or Richmond; if, on the other hand, his 
 main lines were stripped to resist otur attack, otir 
 comrades in the old lines would make short work 
 of Lee's entrenchments and his army. 
 
 At daylight on the twenty-ninth of March the 
 Fifth Corps moved out toward the enemy's right. 
 As the movement was intended to mask its desti- 
 nation by a considerable detour to the rear, our 
 column first moved southward to Arthur's Swamp, 
 crossing the Rowanty at Monk's Bridge, and thence 
 by way of the Old Stage Road into and down the 
 Vaughan. My brigade, being the advance of the 
 First Division, reached the Chappie House, about 
 two miles from Dinwiddle, early in the forenoon, 
 encountering only a few cavalry pickets. Sheridan 
 with the cavalry, moving by a still exterior route, 
 was pushing on towards Dinwiddle Coiort House. 
 
 At about noon General Griffin directed me to 
 return upon the Vaughan Road to the junction of 
 the Quaker Road, and push up this road to develop 
 the enemy's position in that quarter. This direc- 
 tion we knew led towards the very strong salient of 
 the enemy's works near Burgess' MiU on Hatcher's 
 Run: but we did not know where, nor with what 
 force, Lee might see fit to push out a coimter 
 movement to thwart ours. We soon found this 
 road better entitled to its miHtary than its Quaker 
 appellation. A spirited advanced line of the 
 enemy had destroyed the bridge over Gravelly 
 Run and were posted behind some defenses on the 
 north bank intending to give serious check to our 
 advance. Evidently there was something nearby 
 
The Overture 43 
 
 which they deemed it important to cover; and 
 which accordingly we felt an interest to uncover. 
 I formed a plan which I communicated to General 
 Griffin, who approved it and directed General 
 Gregory to support me on the left as I should 
 instruct him, and also directed General Bartlett 
 to be ready to take part as circumstances shotild 
 require. Things being thus arranged, I placed 
 General Sickel with eight companies on the right 
 below the ruined bridge, with instructions to pour 
 a hot fire upon the enemy opposite when with the 
 rest of the brigade I would ford the stream waist- 
 deep above the bridge and strike the enemy's 
 right flank obliquely. This led to a hand-to-hand 
 encotmter. The attack was impetuous; the mus- 
 ketry hot. Major Glenn with his six companies in 
 skirmishing order dashed through the stream and 
 struck the enemy's breastworks front and flank. 
 In a moment everything started loose. The entire 
 brigade forded the stream and rolled forward, 
 closing upon Glenn right and left, and the whole 
 command swept onward like a wave, carrying all 
 before it a mile or more up the road, to the build- 
 ings of the Lewis Farm. The enemy now re-en- 
 forced made a decided stand, and the fight became 
 sharp. But our enveloping line pressed them so 
 severely that they fell back after each struggle to 
 the edge of a thick wood, where a large body had 
 gathered behind a substantial breastwork of logs 
 and earth. 
 
 A withering volley breaks our line into groups. 
 Courage and resolution are great, but some other 
 
44 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 sentiment mightier for the moment controls our 
 men; a backward movement begins, but the men 
 retire slowly, bearing their wounded with them, and 
 even some of their dead. The enemy, seeing this 
 recoil, pour out of their shelter and make a dash 
 upon our broken groups, but only to be dashed 
 back in turn hand to hand in eddying whirls. 
 And seized by our desperate fellows, so many are 
 dragged along as prisoners in the receding tide 
 that it is not easy to teU which side is the win- 
 ning one. Much of the enemy's aim is unsteady, 
 for the flame and murk of their thickening fire 
 in the heavy moist air are blown back into their 
 eyes by the freshening south wind. But reinforce- 
 ments are coming in, deepening and broadening 
 their hne beyond both ovir flanks. Now roar and 
 tumult of motion for a fierce pulse of time, then 
 again a quivering halt. At length one vigorous 
 dash drives the assailants into the woods again with 
 heavy loss. We had cleared the field, and thought 
 it best to be content with that for the present. 
 We reform otor Unes each side the btiildings of the 
 Lewis Farm, and take account of the situation. 
 We had about a hundred prisoners from Wise's 
 and Wallace's Brigades, who said nearly all Ander- 
 son's Division were with them, and that more were 
 coming, and they were bound to hold this outpost 
 covering the junction of two roads which are main 
 arteries of their vital hold, — ^the White Oak and 
 the Boydton Plank. 
 
 We found General Griffin there, and were re- 
 lieved to see that he did not find fault with us, 
 
The Overture 45 
 
 although we had not done all that we expected — 
 perhaps not all that was expected of us. We had 
 been repulsed, no doubt. But there was more to 
 be done. I wondered why Gregory had not 
 attacked on the enemy's right flank when they 
 were driving us back, but found he had difficulty 
 with the streams, which were almost impassable. 
 
 But our work was still before us. I saw that 
 General Griffin was anxious to carry the enemy's 
 position, and I as anxiously formed a new line for 
 the assault. So we were in for it again and almost 
 in cavalry fashion. Giving the right of the line 
 to General Sickel and the left to Colonel Sniper on 
 each side the road, I took Major Glenn with his 
 six companies for a straight dash up the Quaker 
 Road, our objective point being a heap of saw- 
 dust where a portable mill had stood, now the 
 center of the enemy's strong advanced line. We 
 received a hot fire which we did not halt to return 
 as that would expose us to heavy loss, but advanced 
 at the double quick to go over the enemy's works 
 with the bayonet. At close quarters the sharp- 
 shooters in the tree-tops cut us up badly, but we 
 still pressed on, only now and then, here and there, 
 delivering fire ourselves. In the full crescendo of 
 this, now close to the sawdust pile, my horse, wild 
 for the front, all his pulses aglow, was exceeding the 
 possible pace of the men following and I gave him 
 a vigorous check on the curb. Resenting this, he 
 touched his fore feet to earth only to rebound head- 
 high to the level of my face. Just at that instant 
 a heavy blow struck me on the left breast just below 
 
46 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 the heart. I fell forward on my horse's neck and 
 lost all consciousness. The bullet at close range 
 had been aimed at my breast, but the horse had 
 lifted his head just in time to catch it, so that, 
 passing through the big muscle of his neck (and 
 also I may say through a leather case of field 
 orders and a brass-mounted hand-mirror in my 
 breast-pocket — ^we didn't carry towels in this 
 campaign), demolished the pistol in the belt of my 
 aide Lieutenant Vogel, and knocked him out of the 
 saddle. This, of course, I only knew afterwards. 
 The shock had stopped my horse, and I must have, 
 been for some little time unconscious. The first 
 thing I knew an arm was aroundmy waist and words 
 murmtired in my ear, "My dear General, you are 
 gone, " the kindly voice of General Griffin who had 
 ridden up beside me. At that moment also a very 
 different strain struck my ear on the other hand, — 
 a wild rebel yell. As I lifted my head a glance 
 showed me the right of our line broken and flying 
 before the enemy like leaves before the wind. This 
 explains my answer to Griffin, "Yes, General, I 
 am, " — ^that is, "gone" in another sense. 
 
 The bullet had riddled my sleeve to the elbow 
 and bruised and battered my bridle arm so that it 
 was useless, and the obstructions it met had 
 slightly deflected it so that, instead of striking the 
 point of my heart, it had followed around two ribs 
 so as to come out at the back seam of my coat. 
 The horse was bleeding profusely and my falling on 
 his neck brought a blood relationship of which I was 
 not ashamed. Everybody around thought I was 
 
The Overture 47 
 
 "gone" indeed, and that is why a telegram went 
 to the New York morning papers reporting me as 
 killed. In the shock my cap had fallen to the 
 grotmd, and I must have been a queer spectacle as 
 I rose in the saddle tattered and battered, bare- 
 headed and blood-smeared. I swung the rein 
 against my horse's wounded neck and lightly 
 touching his flank with my heel, we made a dash 
 for the rally of our right. Pushing in among our 
 broken ranks or our 198th Pennsylvania, the men 
 might well have thought me a messenger from the 
 other world. That rally was sharp work — and 
 costly. Down at the extreme right, in the mad- 
 dened whirl, I found the brave Sickel, his face 
 aflame, ralljdng his men with an appeal none covild 
 resist. In a moment after he fell by my side with a 
 shattered arm. With him was that heroic boy Major 
 McEuen who high above all thought of self was 
 dashing into the seething crest of battle and was 
 shot from his saddle within touch of my unavailing 
 hand; so passed a noble spirit, a sweet soul, 
 only son of his proud father and last of his race on 
 earth. By such appeal and offering this gallant 
 regiment, forced back by overpowering onset, 
 straightened up into line again, and with a thrilling, 
 almost appalling cheer, turned the tide of battle, 
 and rolled it fairly back inside the enemy's works. 
 Aware of some confusion near the sawdust pile 
 I thought it fitting to rettirn to my place at the 
 center. I was astonished at the greeting of cheers 
 which marked my course. Strangest of all was 
 that when I emerged to the sight of the enemy, 
 
48 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 they also took up the cheering. I hardly knew 
 what world I was in. 
 
 By the time I got back to the center the loss of 
 blood had exhausted the strength of my horse, and 
 his nose came to earth. I had to send him back 
 and become a foot soldier. It was a critical time 
 there, with much confusion. Glenn was having 
 a hard time at the sawdust pile, and I worked 
 myself forward in the crowd to get at the state of 
 things in front. By a sudden backset I found my- 
 self surrounded by Confederates, who courteously 
 lowered their muskets and locked their bayonets 
 around me to indicate a reception not easily to be 
 declined, and probably to last some time. The 
 old coat was dingy almost to gray; I was bare- 
 headed, and rather a doubtful character anyway. 
 I thought it warrantable to assume an extremely 
 friendly relation. To their exhortation I replied: 
 " Surrender? What's the matter with you? What 
 do you take me for? Don't you see these Yanks 
 right onto us? Come along with me and let us 
 break 'em. " I still had my right arm and my light 
 sword, and I gave a slight flourish indicating my 
 wish and their direction. They did follow me like 
 brave fellows, — ^most of them too far; for they 
 were a long time getting back. 
 
 There was a little lull shortly afterwards, but 
 quite a curious crowd around the sawdust pile. 
 Colonel Spear of my old 20th Maine, who charged 
 himself with a certain care for me, came up now 
 and with a mysterious and impressive look, as if 
 about to present a brevet commission, drew from 
 
The Overture 49 
 
 his breast-pocket an implement or utensil some- 
 what resembling a flask, which he confidentially 
 assured me contained some very choice wine, of 
 which he invited me to take a swallow. Now that 
 word is a very indeterminate and flighty term. As 
 I took the instrviment in hand, I perceived it to be 
 a Jamaica-ginger bottle frugally indented on all 
 sides. I elevated it at the proper angle of inci- 
 dence without, perhaps, sufficiently observing that 
 of reflection; but I thought masonic courtesy would 
 be observed if I stopped when the bubble indicated 
 "spirit-level. " I returned the equitable remainder 
 to him with commendation and grateful thanks. 
 But the melancholy, martyr-like look on his face 
 as he held it up to the light, revealed his inward 
 thought that in appropriating his courtesy I had 
 availed myself to the extreme of my privilege. 
 My friend in later years seeks to get even with me 
 by recalling this story on festive occasions for the 
 entertainment of friends. I do not like to admit 
 the charge against myself, but have no hesitation 
 in entering the plea on behalf of my accessory, 
 the bottle, of extremely extenuating circumstances. 
 I was glad the Colonel was not on my staff then, 
 and I did not have to meet him at evening. 
 
 We were soon parted. A hoarse yell rose 
 through the tumult on the left, where the impetu- 
 ous Sniper had tried to carry the breastworks in 
 the woods, and now, badly cut up, his regiment was 
 slowly falling back, closely followed by the enemy 
 potiring out from, their works. They were soon 
 pressed back to a line perpendicular to their proper 
 
50 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 front, and the flight was fierce. Meantime, I 
 scarcely know how, nor by whom helped, I found 
 myself mounted on the back of a strange, dull- 
 looking white horse, that had been bespattered by 
 the trodden earth, and as I rode down among my 
 fine New Yorkers, I must have looked more than 
 ever like a figure from the Apocalypse. 
 
 There I found the calm, cold-steel face of Sniper, 
 who had snatched his regimental colors from the 
 dead hands of the third color-bearer that had gone 
 down under them in the last half-hour, and was 
 still holding his shattered ranks facing the storm; 
 himself tossing on the crest of every wave, rolling 
 and rocking like a ship laying to in the teeth of a 
 gale. I dispatched a staff-officer for Gregory to 
 attack where I supposed him to be, in position to 
 enfilade the enemy's newly gained aUgnment. In 
 response up rode Griffin, anxious and pale, his 
 voice ringing with a strange tone, as of mingled 
 command and entreaty: "If you can hold on 
 there ten minutes, I will give you a battery." 
 That was a great tonic: Griffin's confidence and 
 his guns. There was quite an eminence a little 
 to our rear, behind which I was intending to 
 re-form my line should it be driven from the field. 
 I changed my plan. Pushing through to Sniper, 
 I shouted in his ear in a voice the men shovild hear: 
 ' ' Once more ! Try the steel ! Hell for ten minutes 
 and we are out of it!" 
 
 I had no idea we could carry the woods, or hold 
 them if we did. My real objective was that knoll in 
 the rear. I wanted to keep the enemy from pressing 
 
The Overture 51 
 
 over it before we could get our guns up. A 
 desperate resort was necessary. 
 
 While a spirit as it were superhuman took pos- 
 session of minds and bodies; energies of will, 
 contradicting all laws of dynamics, reversed the di- 
 rection of the stirging wave, and dashed it back 
 upon the woods and breastworks within them. 
 Having the enemy now on the defensive, I took oc- 
 casion to let Sniper know my purpose and plan, and 
 to instruct his men accordingly: to demoralize the 
 enemy by a smashing artillery fire, and then charge 
 the woods by similar bolt-like blast of men. They 
 took this in with calm intelligence, and braced 
 assent. I knew they would do all possible to man. 
 AU the while I was straining eyes and prayers for a 
 sight of the guns. And now they come — B of the 
 4th Regtdars, Mitchell leading with headlong 
 speed, horses smoking, battery thundering with 
 jolt and rattle, wheeling into action front, on the 
 hillock I had been saving for them, while the earth 
 flew beneath the wheels, — ^magnificent, the shining, 
 terrible Napoleons. I rode out to meet them, 
 pointing out the ground. Mitchell's answering 
 look had a mixed expression, suggestive of a smile. 
 I did not see anything in the situation to smile at, 
 but he evidently did. I shovild have remembered 
 my remarkable personal appearance. He did not 
 smile long. The colloquy was short: "Mitchell, 
 do you think you can put solid shot or percussion 
 into those woods close over the rebels' heads, with- 
 out htirting my men ? ' ' — ' ' Yes, Sir ! if they will keep 
 where they are." — "Well then, give it to them the 
 
52 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 best you know. But stop quick at my signal, and 
 fire clear of my men when they charge. " 
 
 It was splendid and terrible: the swift-served, 
 bellowing, leaping big guns; the thrashing of the 
 solid shot into the woods; the flying splinters 
 and branches and tree-tops coming down upon the 
 astonished heads; shouts changing into shrieks at 
 the savage work of these unaccustomed missiles; 
 then answering back the burst of fire oblique upon 
 the left front of the battery, where there was a 
 desperate attempt to carry it by flank attack; 
 repulsed by Sniper drawing to the left, and thus 
 also leaving clear range for closer cutting projec- 
 tiles, when now case shot and shell, now a blast of 
 canister, poured into the swarming, swirling foe. 
 
 My right wing was holding itself in the line of 
 woods they had carried, reversing the breast- 
 works there. The strain was on the left now. I 
 was at the guns, where danger of disaster centered, 
 so closely were they pressed upon at times. Mit- 
 chell, bravely handling his imperilled battery, — I 
 had just seen him mounting a gun-carriage as it 
 recoiled, to observe the effect of its shot, — ^went 
 down grievously wounded. It was thunder and 
 lightning and earthquake; but it was necessary 
 to hold things steady. Now, thank Heaven! 
 comes up Griffin, anxious and troubled. I dare 
 say I too looked something the worse for wear, for 
 Griffin's first word was: "General, you must not 
 leave us. We cannot spare you now." "I had 
 no thought of it, General," was all I had to say. 
 He brought up Colonel Doolittle (not named by a 
 
The Overture 53 
 
 prophet, stirely) with the 189th New York, from 
 Gregory's Brigade, and Colonel Partridge (a 
 trace of the bird of Jove on his wing), with the ist 
 and i6th Michigan, to my support. These I 
 placed on Sniper's right; when tip came that hand- 
 some Zouave regiment, the 155th Pennsylvania, 
 the gallant Pearson at their head, regimental colors 
 in hand, expecting some forward work, sweeping so 
 finely into line that I was proud to give them the cen- 
 ter, joining on the heroic Glenn, holding there alone. 
 It is soon over. Woods and works are cleared, 
 and the enemy sent flying up the road towards their 
 main entrenchments. The 185th New York is 
 drawn back and placed in support of the battery, 
 right and left. The 198th Pennsylvania is gathered 
 on the right, in front of the farm buildings. 
 Gregory takes the advanced Hne, and soon Bartlett 
 comes up and presses up the road to near the junc- 
 tion of the Boydton and White Oak, reminded of 
 the enemy's neighborhood by a few cannon shots 
 from their entrenchments near Burgess' Mill bridge- 
 head. At about this time word comes that the 
 Second Corps is on our right, not far away. By our 
 action a lodgment had been effected which became 
 the pivot of the series of tmdulations on the left, 
 which after three days resulted in turning the 
 right flank of Lee's army. We had been fighting 
 Grade's, Ransom's, Wallace's, and Wise's Brigades, 
 of Johnson's Division, under command of General 
 R. H. Anderson, numbering, as by their last morn- 
 ing reports, 6277 officers and men "effective" for 
 the field. 
 
54 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 My own brigade in this engagement numbered 
 less than 1700 officers and men. Mitchell's 
 battery and Gregory's and Bartlett's regiments 
 assisting in the final advance added to this number 
 probably 1000 more. Their total loss in this 
 engagement was slight in numbers. The loss in 
 my brigade was a quarter of those in line. 
 
 My fight was over, but not my responsibilities. 
 The day and the field are ours; but what a day, 
 and what a field ! As for the day, behind the heavy 
 brooding mists the shrouded sun was drawing down 
 the veil which shrined it in the mausoleum of 
 vanished but tuiforgotten years. And for the 
 field: strown all over it were a hundred and fifty 
 bodies of the enemy's dead, and many of the hun- 
 dred and sixty-seven of my own men killed and 
 wounded. Both my personal aides had been 
 severely wounded, and every officer of my staff 
 unhorsed. The casualties among officers were 
 especially beyond the ratio in other battles. 
 Captain Mitchell, commanding the battery, was 
 lying behind it severely wounded. It may be 
 proper to add that as he was serving away from his 
 immediate superiors, I saw to it that his gallant 
 and most effective service was faithfully reported, 
 and fairly recognized by the Government. There 
 was a sequel to this in the widowhood of after 
 years. Sometimes we can do for others what we 
 cannot do for ourselves. And this is the law of 
 richest increase. 
 
 With the declining day I slowly rode over the 
 stricken field. Aroxmd the breastworks lay a 
 
The Overture 55 
 
 hundred and fifty of the enemy's dead and desper- 
 ately wounded. We had taken also in the counter- 
 charges and eddies of the strife nearly two hundred 
 prisoners — ^happier than they knew. These we 
 sent away for safe-keeping. But we had with us, 
 to keep and to care for, more than five hundred 
 bniised bodies of men, — ^men made in the image 
 of God, marred by the hand of man, and must 
 we say in the name of God? And where is the 
 reckoning for such things? And who is answer- 
 able? One might almost shrink from the sound of 
 his own voice, which had launched into the palpita- 
 ting air words of order — do we caU it? — ^fraught 
 with such ruin. Was it God's command we heard, 
 or His forgiveness we must forever implore? 
 
 For myself, though hardly able to move erect 
 for soreness and weakness, I was thankful to have 
 come out holding together as well as I did. For 
 one little circumstance, which, I suppose, has 
 interest only for myself, I felt very grateful for the 
 kindness, and possibly the favor, of General Griffin 
 in so ordering my reinforcements as not to deprive 
 me of the command of the field till my fight was 
 over. In the exigency of the situation, instead of 
 sending me four regiments from the other two 
 brigades of the division, he might very properly 
 have put in Bartlett, with his fine brigade, and that 
 gallant officer wotdd doubtless have carried all 
 before him. But that noble sense of fairness, 
 that delicate recognition of honorable sensibilities, 
 in thoughtfully permitting, and even helping, a 
 subordinate to fight his fight through, if he could, 
 
56 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 and receive whatever credit might belong :o it, 
 shows not only the generous traits of General 
 Griffin's character, but shows also how strange a 
 bond it is to hold a body of soldiers togethe/, each 
 and each to all, when men can feel what they have 
 wrought with the best that is in them is safe in 
 the hands of their commander, whose power over 
 the "ways of putting things" has so much effect 
 to make or mar their reputation. Some command- 
 ers more than others have commanded love. That 
 too has reason. Justice is said to be an attribute 
 of the divine: in our imperfect world, missing that, 
 we count one thing noblest, — and that is soul. 
 
 One other thing I may mention. General 
 Warren, our Corps commander, came up to me 
 with pleasant words. "General," he says, "you 
 have done splendid work. I am telegraphing the 
 President, You will hear from it." Not long 
 afterwards I received from the Government a 
 brevet commission of Major-General, given, as it 
 stated, "for conspicuous gallantry in action on the 
 Quaker Road, March 29, 1865. " I had previously 
 received this brevet of the date of March 13th, pur- 
 porting to be for meritorious services during that 
 Virginia campaign. I begged permission to decline 
 this and to accept the later one. 
 
 First looking after the comfort of my wounded 
 horse in one of the farmsheds, I walked out alone 
 over the field to see how it was faring for the ' ' unre- 
 turning brave. " It was sunset beyond the clouds; 
 with us the murky battle-smoke and thickening 
 mists wrapped the earth, darklier shaded in many 
 
The Overture 57 
 
 a spot no light should look on more. Burials 
 were even now begun; searchings, questionings, 
 rehefs, recognitions, greetings, and farewells; last 
 messages tenderly taken from manly lips for 
 breaking hearts ; insuppressible human moan ; flick- 
 erings of heart-held song ; vanishing prayer heaven- 
 ward. But what could mortal do for mortal or 
 human skill or sympathy avail for such deep need? 
 I leaned over one and spoke to another as I passed, 
 feeling how little now I could command. At 
 length I kneeled above the sweet body of McEuen, 
 where God's thought had folded its wing; and 
 near by, where wrecks were thickly strewn, I came 
 upon brave old Sickel lying calm and cheerful, 
 with a shattered limb, and weakened by loss of 
 blood while "fighting it through," but refusing to 
 have more attention than came in his turn. Still 
 picttired on my mind his splendid action where I 
 had left him rallying his men, I sat down by him to 
 give him such cheer as I could. He seemed to 
 think I needed the comforting. The heroic flush 
 was still on his face. "General," he whispers, 
 smiling up, "you have the soul of the lion and the 
 heart of the woman." "Take the benediction to 
 yourself," was the reply; "you could not have 
 thought that, if you had not been it." And that 
 was our thought at parting for other trial, and 
 through after years. For so it is: might and love, 
 — ^they are the all; — fatherhood and motherhood 
 of God himself, and of every godlike man. 
 
 Still we are gathering up otir wounded; first 
 filling the bleak old Quaker meeting-house with 
 
58 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 those requiring instant attention and tenderest 
 care, then giving our best for the many more, 
 sheltering them as we could, or out under the 
 brooding rain, where nature was sighing her own 
 requiem, but even this grateful to some parched 
 lip or throbbing wound. Still, after the descending 
 night had wrapped the world in its softening shroud 
 the burials were going on (for we had other things 
 for the morrow), — strange figures on some far 
 edge, weirdly iUumined by the lurid lanterns hold- 
 ing their light so close, yet magnifying every form 
 and motion of the scene, all shadow-veiled and 
 hooded like the procession of the "misericordia. " 
 Seeking also the wotmded of the enemy, led mostly 
 by moans and supplications, — souls left so lonely, 
 forlorn, and far away from all the caring; caring for 
 these too, and partly for that very reason; gather- 
 ing them out of the cold and rain when possible, — 
 for ' ' blood is thicker than water, ' ' — ^we treated them 
 as our own. "How far that little candle throws 
 its beams!" Indeed, in the hour of sorrow and 
 disaster do we not all belong to each other? At 
 last, having done all possible, our much-enduring 
 men lay down under the rain and darkness descend- 
 ing so close, so stifling, so benumbing, — ^to sleep, 
 to dream. 
 
 For my own part, I was fain to seek a comer 
 of the sorrow-laden Lewis house, sinking down 
 drenched and torn in that dark, tinwholesome, 
 scarcely vital air, fitting companion of the weakest 
 there. But first of all, drawing near a rude kitchen 
 box, by the smoxddering light of a sodden candle, 
 
The Overture 59 
 
 steadying my nerves to compose a letter to dear, 
 high-souled Doctor McEuen of Philadelphia, re- 
 membering his last words commending to my care 
 his only son, with the beseeching, almost conse- 
 crating hands laid on my shoulder, — ^to tell him 
 how, in the forefront of battle and in act of heroic 
 devotion, his noble boy had been lifted to his like, 
 and his own cherished hope merged with immortal 
 things. 
 
 Never to be forgotten, — ^that night of March 
 twenty-ninth, on the Quaker Road. All night 
 the dismal rain swept down the darkness, deep 
 answering deep, soaking the fields and roadg, and 
 drenching the men stretched on the ground, sore 
 with overstrain and wounds, — ^living, dead, and 
 djdng all shrouded in ghastly gloom. Before 
 morning the roads were impassable for artUlery and 
 army-wagons, and nearly so for the ambulances, 
 of our Corps and the Second, that crept up ghost- 
 like through the shuddering mist. Under the 
 spectral light of hovering lanterns hundreds of 
 helpless patient sufferers were loaded in; to be 
 taken from this scene of their manly valor, now so 
 barren of all but human kindness, in long procession 
 for the nearest hospital or railroad station, — and 
 for what other station and what other greeting, 
 what cotild they, or we, foreknow? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE WHITE OAK ROAD 
 
 WITH customary cognizance of our ptir- 
 poses and plans, Lee had on the 28th of 
 March ordered General Fitzhugh Lee 
 with his division of cavalry — about 1300 strong — 
 from the extreme left of his lines near Hanover 
 Court House, to the extreme right in the vicinity 
 of Five Forks, this being fotir or five miles beyond 
 Lee's entrenched right, at which point it was 
 thought Sheridan would attempt to break up the 
 Southside Railroad. Longstreet had admonished 
 him that the next move would be on his communi- 
 cations, urging him to put a sufficient force in the 
 field to meet this. "Our greater danger," he said, 
 "is from keeping too close within our trenches."' 
 Such despatch had Fitzhugh Lee made that on the 
 evening of the twenty-ninth he had arrived at 
 Sutherlands Station, within six miles of Five Forks, 
 and about that distance from our fight that after- 
 noon on the Quaker Road. On the morning of 
 the 29th, Lee had also despatched General R. H. 
 Anderson with Bushrod Johnson's Division — 
 
 ' Manassas to Appomattox, p. 588. 
 
 60 
 
The White Oak Road 6i 
 
 Grade's, Ransom's, Wise's, and Wallace's Brigades 
 — ^to reinforce his main entrenchments along the 
 White Oak Road. It was these troops which we 
 had encoxmtered on the Quaker Road. Pickett's 
 Division, consisting of the brigades of Stuart, Hun- 
 ton, Corse, and Terry, about five thousand strong, 
 was sent to the entrenchments along the Claiborne 
 Road, and Roberts's Brigade of North Carolina 
 cavalry, to picket the White Oak Road from the 
 Claiborne, the right of their entrenchments, to 
 Five Forks. 
 
 On the thirtieth, the Fifth Corps, relieved by 
 the Second, moved to the left along the Boydton 
 Road, advancing its left towards the right of 
 the enemy's entrenchments on the White Oak 
 Road. Lee, also, apprehensive for his right, sent 
 McGowan's South Carolina Brigade and McRae's 
 North Carolina, of Hill's Corps, to strengthen 
 Bushrod Johnson's Division in the entrench- 
 ments there; but took two of Johnson's brigades — 
 Ransom's and Wallace's — ^with three brigades of 
 Pickett's Division (leaving Hunton's in the en- 
 trenchments), to go with Pickett to reinforce Fitz- 
 hugh Lee at Five Forks. W. H. F. Lee's Division 
 of cavalry, about one thousand five hundred men, 
 and Rosser's, about one thousand, were also ordered 
 to Five Forks. These reinforcements did not reach 
 Five Forks until the evening of the thirtieth. 
 
 The precise details of these orders and move- 
 ments were, of course, not known to General 
 Grant nor to any of his subordinates. But enough 
 had been developed on the Quaker Road to lead 
 
62 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Grant to change materially his orginal purpose 
 of making the destruction of the railroads the 
 principal objective of Sheridan's movements. At 
 the close of our fight there, Grant had despatched 
 Sheridan: "Our line is now unbroken from Appo- 
 mattox to Dinwiddle. I now feel like ending the 
 matter, if possible, before going back. I do not 
 want you, therefore, to cut loose and go after the 
 enemy's roads at present. In the morning push 
 around the enemy, if you can, and get on to his 
 right rear. The movements of the enemy's cavalry 
 may, x>f tiourse, modify your action. We will act 
 together as one army here, until it is seen what 
 can be done with the enemy." Grant also tele- 
 graphed President Lincoln: "General Griffin was 
 attacked near where the Quaker Road intersects 
 the Boydton, but repulsed it easily, capturing 
 about 100 prisoners." But on the morning of the 
 30th, he telegraphed the President again: "I 
 understand the number of dead left by the enemy 
 yesterday for us to bury was much greater than 
 our own dead. Our captures also were larger than 
 reported. This morning all our troops have been 
 pushed forward." For the morning of the 30th 
 in spite of the sodden earth and miry roads, we 
 managed to pull through to the Boydton Plank 
 Road, which the Fifth Corps occupied as far as 
 its crossing of Gravelly Run. Meantime, Hum- 
 phreys with the Second Corps, advanced on the 
 right of the road, and pressing the Confederate 
 pickets behind their entrenchments, held his line 
 close up to them. 
 
The White Oak Road 63 
 
 The effect of this message to Sheridan reached 
 to something more than a measure of tactics. It 
 brought him at once to Grant. It will be borne in 
 mind that he was not under the orders of Meade, 
 but an independent commander, subject to Grant 
 alone. His original orders contemplated his hand- 
 ling his command as a flying column, independently 
 of others — all the responsibility and all the glory 
 being his own. The new instructions would bring 
 him to act in conjunction with the Army of the 
 Potomac, and render quite probable under army 
 regulations and usages his coming under temporary 
 command of General Meade, his senior in rank, — 
 a position we do not find him in during this cam- 
 paign. The logic of the new situation involved 
 some interesting corollaries beyond the direct 
 issue of arms. 
 
 In that dismal night of March 29th on the 
 Quaker Road Sheridan was holding long and close 
 conference with Grant, having ridden up through 
 the mud and rain immediately on receiving the 
 message announcing the change of plan, to Grant's 
 headquarters a little in rear of us on Gravelly 
 Rim. All that was known of this interview to 
 those outside was that at the close of it, Sheridan 
 was directed to gain possession of Five Forks early 
 in the morning. We cotdd not help feeling that 
 he should have taken possession of this before. 
 For all the afternoon and night of the 29th, there 
 was nothing to oppose him there but the right wing 
 of Roberts' slender brigade, picketing the White 
 Oak Road. But when he received a positive order 
 
64 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 to secure that point on the morning of the 30th, 
 he seems to have moved so late and moderately 
 that Fitzhugh Lee had time to march from Suther- 
 land's Station to Five Forks, and thence half-way 
 to Dinwiddle Court House to meet him; and even 
 then, attacking with a single division, although 
 this outntimbered the enemy by a thousand men,' 
 he permitted his demonstration on Five Forks to 
 be turned into a reconnaissance half-way out,' 
 his advance being checked at the forks of the Ford 
 and Boisseau Road, where it remained all night 
 and until itself attacked the next morning.^ It 
 is true that the roads and fields were heavy with 
 rain; but this did not prevent our two infantry 
 corps from moving forward and establishing them- 
 selves in front of the White Oak Road, in face of 
 considerable opposition; nor hinder Lee from zeal- 
 ously strengthening the right of his lines and press- 
 ing forward his reinforcements of infantry and 
 cavalry to Fitzhugh Lee at Five Forks, where 
 they arrived about sunset. What we cannot 
 understand is why previous to that time General 
 Sheridan, with thirteen thousand cavalry, had 
 not found it practicable to make an effective de- 
 monstration on Five Forks, covered all the morn- 
 ing only by what few men Roberts had there 
 picketing the White Oak Road, and after that 
 
 ' General Devin's Division numbered, according to returns of March 
 30, 169 officers and 2830 men, present for duty. 
 
 ' General Merritt's despatch of March 30th. Rebellion Records, Serial 
 97, p. 326. 
 
 ' General Fitzhugh Lee's testimony. Warren Court Records, vol. i., 
 p. 469. 
 
The White Oak Road 65 
 
 time, all day, only by Fitzhugh Lee with eighteen 
 hundred cavalry. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 31st the Fifth 
 Corps had all advanced northerly beyond the 
 Boydton Road towards the enemy at the junction 
 of the White Oak and Claiborne Roads: As^res, 
 with the Second Division, in advance, about six 
 hundred yards from this juiiction; Crawford, with 
 the Third Division, on Ayres' right rear in echelon 
 with him, about six hundred yards distant; and 
 GriflSn, with the First Division, in position about 
 thirteen hundred yards in rear of a prolongation of 
 Crawford's hne to the left, entirely out of sight 
 of both, owing to woods and broken ground, but 
 within what was thought to be supporting distance. 
 This position was along the southeast bank of a 
 swampy branch of Gravelly Run, half a mile north 
 of the Boydton Road, and a mile and a half south 
 of the White Oak Road. Miles* Division of the 
 Second Corps had extended to the left on the 
 Boydton Road to connect with Griffin. 
 
 My command was the extreme left of our lines; 
 my own brigade along the difficult branch of 
 Gravelly Run, facing towards Ayres. Gregory, 
 who had been directed by General Griffin to report 
 to me for orders with his brigade for the rest of 
 this campaign, was placed on the left, his line 
 bent back at right angles along a country road 
 leading from Boydton to the Claiborne Road. 
 A portion of the artillery of the division was placed 
 also in my lines to strengthen the defense of that 
 flank, where we had reason to believe the enemy. 
 
66 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 after their old fashion, were very likely to make a 
 dash upon our left while we were manoeuvring to 
 turn their right. 
 
 General Grant, understanding from General 
 Sheridan that he was on the White Oak Road 
 near Five Forks, on the afternoon of the 30th, 
 had replied to him that his position on this road 
 was of very great importance, and concluded this 
 answer with these words: "Can you not push up 
 towards Btirgess' Mills on the White Oak Road? '" 
 
 General Grant's wishes, as now understood, 
 were that we should gain possession of the White 
 Oak Road in our front. This was indicated in a 
 despatch from him March 30th, to General Meade, 
 the purport of which was known to us and had 
 much to do with shaping our energies for action. 
 The despatch was the following: 
 
 As Warren and Humphreys advance, thus shortening 
 their line, I think the former had better move by the left 
 flank as far as he can stretch out with safety, and cover 
 the White Oak Road if he can. This will enable Sheridan 
 to reach the Southside Road by Ford's Road, and, it may 
 be, double the enemy up, so as to drive him out of his 
 works south of Hatcher's Run. 
 
 In accordance with this understanding, A3rres 
 had made a carefvil examination of the situation 
 in his front, upon the results of which General 
 
 ' Sheridan's despatch to Grant, March 30th, 2.45 p.m., and Grant's 
 reply thereto; Records, Warren Court of Inquiry, vol. ii., p. 1309. It 
 afterwards transpired that Sheridan's cavahy did not long hold this 
 position. Grant's despatch to Meade, March 31st, Rebellion Records, 
 Serial 97, p. 339. 
 
The White Oak Road 67 
 
 Warren had reported to Generals Meade and 
 Grant that he believed he cotild, with his whole 
 corps, gain possession of the White Oak Road. 
 This proposition was made in face of the informa- 
 tion of Grant's order of 7.40 this morning, that 
 owing to the heavy rains the troops were to remain 
 substantially as they were, but that three days' 
 more rations should be issued to the Fifth Corps; 
 an intimation of a possible cutting loose from our 
 base of supplies for a time. 
 
 Griffin's Division, being entrusted with a double 
 duty — ^that of guarding the exposed left flank of 
 the Fifth and Second Corps, and that of being in 
 readiness to render prompt assistance in case of 
 trouble arising from the demonstrations against 
 the White Oak Road front — oxir adjustments had 
 to be made for what in familiar speech is termed a 
 "ticklish situation." Vague rumors from the 
 direction of Five Forks, added to what we knew of 
 the general probabilities, justified us in consider- 
 able anxiety. There was a queer expression on 
 Griffin's face when he showed me a copy of a 
 message from Grant to Sheridan, late the evening 
 before, which gave us the comical satisfaction of 
 knowing that our inward fears had good outside 
 support. This was what we thus enjoyed: "From 
 the information I have sent you of Warren's po- 
 sition, you will see that he is in danger of being 
 attacked in the morning. If such occurs, be pre- 
 pared to push up with all your force to assist him." 
 The morning had now come. It is needless to 
 remark that there was no lethargy in the minds of 
 
68 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 any on that left flank of ours in a situation so 
 critical, whether for attack or defense. 
 
 It may seem strange that in such a state of 
 things Warren should have made the suggestion 
 for a movement to his front. But he was anxious, 
 as were all his subordinates, to strike a blow in 
 the line of our main business, which wa? to turn 
 Lee's right and break up his army. Wet and worn 
 and famished as all were, we were alive to the 
 thought that promptness and vigor of action would 
 at all events determine the conditions and chances 
 of the campaign. And if this movement did not 
 involve the immediate turning of Lee's right in his 
 entrenchments, it would secure the White Oak 
 Road to the west of them, which Grant had assured 
 Sheridan was of so much importance, and would 
 enable us to hold Lee's right in check, so that 
 Sheridan covild either advance on the White Oak 
 Road toward us and Burgess' Mills, as Grant had 
 asked him to do, or make a dash on the Southside 
 Railroad, and cut their communications and turn 
 their right by a wider sweep, as Grant had also 
 suggested to him to do. 
 
 Late in the forenoon Warren received through 
 General Webb, chief of staff, the following order: 
 "General Meade directs that should you deter- 
 mine by your reconnaissance that you can gain 
 possession of, and hold, the White Oak Road, you 
 are to do so, notwithstanding the order to suspend 
 operations to-day." This gave a sudden turn to 
 dreams. In that humiliation, fasting, and prayer, 
 visions arose hke prophecy of old. We felt the 
 
The White Oak Road 69 
 
 swing and sweep; we saw the enemy turned front 
 and flank across the White Oak Road; Sheridan 
 flashing on our wheeUng flank, cutting communica- 
 tions, enfilading the Claiborne entrenchments; otir 
 Second Corps over the main works, followed up 
 by our troops in the old lines seizing the supreme 
 moment to smash in the Petersburg defenses, scat- 
 ter and capture all that was left of Lee's army, 
 and sweep away every menace to the old flag 
 between us and the James River, — mirage and 
 glamour of boyish fancy, measuring things by its 
 heart; daydreams of men familiar with disaster, 
 drenched and famished, but building, as ever, 
 castles of their sotils above the level river of death. 
 
 It was with mingled feelings of mortification, 
 apprehension, and desperation that, in the very 
 ecstasy of these visions, word came to us of Sheri- 
 dan's latest despatch to Grant the evening before, 
 that Pickett's Division of infantry was deployed 
 along the White Oak Road, his right reaching to 
 Five Forks, and the whole rebel cavalry was 
 massing at that place, so that Sheridan would be 
 held in check by them instead of dashing up, as 
 was his wont, to give a cyclone edge to our wheeling 
 flank. (Grant's despatch to Meade, transmitting 
 this, was a dire disenchantment. The knell rang 
 thus: "From this despatch Warren will not have 
 the cavalry support on his left flank that I ex- 
 pected. He must watch closely his left flank." 
 
 Although Grant had given out word that there 
 should be no movement of troops that day, Lee 
 seems not so to have resolved. Driven to seize 
 
70 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 every advantage or desperate expedient, he had 
 ordered four brigades, those of Wise, Grade, and 
 Htmton, with McGowan's South Carolina Brigade, 
 to move out from their entrenchments, get across 
 the flank of the Fifth Corps and smash it in. We 
 did not know this, but it was the very situation 
 which Grant had made the occasion for attacking 
 ourselves. It was a strange coincidence, and it 
 was to both parties a stirprise. 
 
 This was the condition of things and of minds 
 when the advance ordered for the White Oak Road 
 was put into execution. Ayres advanced soldier- 
 like, as was his nature; resolute, firm-hearted, 
 fearing nothing, in truth not fearing quite enough. 
 Although he believed his advance would bring on 
 a battle, he moved without skirmishers, but in a 
 wedgelike formation guarding both flanks. His 
 First Brigade, commanded by the gallant Win- 
 throp, had the lead in line of battle, his right and 
 rear supported by the Third Brigade, that of Gwyn, 
 who was accounted a good fighter; and Denison's 
 Maryland Brigade formed in colvunn on Winthrop's 
 left and rear, ready to face outward by the left 
 flank in case of need; while a brigade of Crawford's 
 was held in reserve in rear of the center. This 
 would seem to be a prudent and strong formation 
 of Ayres' command. The enemy's onset was swift 
 and the encoimter sudden. The blow fell without 
 warning, enveloping Ayres' complete front. It 
 appears that McGowan's Brigade struck squarely 
 on Winthrop's left flank, with an oblique fire also 
 on the Maryland Brigade, while the rest of the 
 
The White Oak Road 71 
 
 attacking forces struck on his front and right. 
 General Hunton' says they were not expecting 
 to strike our troops so soon and that the attack was 
 not made by usual order, but that on discovering 
 our advance so close upon them a gallant lieuten- 
 ant in his brigade sprang in front of his line, wav- 
 ing his sword, with the shout, "Follow me, boys!" 
 whereupon all three brigades on their right dashed 
 forward to the charge. Winthrop was over- 
 whelmed and his supports demoralized. All he 
 could hope for was to retire in good order. This 
 he exerted himself to effect. But this is not an 
 easy thing to do when once the retreat is started 
 before a spirited foe superior in numbers, or in the 
 flush of success. In vain the sturdy Denison 
 strove to stem the torrent. A disabling wound 
 struck down his brave example, and the effect of 
 this shows how much the moral forces have to do 
 in sustaining the physical. Brigade after brigade 
 broke, that strange imptdse termed a "panic" 
 took effect, and the retreat became a rout. 
 
 Ayres, like a roaring lion, endeavors to check this 
 disorder, and makes a stand on each favoring crest 
 and wooded ravine. But in vain. His men 
 stream past him. They come back on Crawford's 
 veteran division and burst through it in spite of 
 all the indignant Kellogg can do, involving this 
 also in the demoralization; and the whole crowd 
 comes back reckless of everj^hing but to get 
 behind the lines on the Boydton Road, plunging 
 through the swampy run, breaking through Griffin's 
 
 ' Records, Warren Court, p. 623. 
 
72 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 right where he and Bartlett re-form them behind 
 the Third Brigade. The pursuing enemy swarm- 
 ing down the opposite bank are checked there by 
 the sharp musketi'y from our Hne. Not knowing 
 but the enemy were in force sufficient to smash 
 through us on the left, I prepared for action. 
 Griffin authorized me to use a portion of the artil- 
 lery, and I swung two pieces to the right front, 
 while he himself with great exertion got a battery 
 into position along Bartlett's front. The enemy 
 were gathering force, although in much confusion. 
 I was apprehensive of an attempt to take us in 
 flank on the left in Gregory's front, and was about 
 giving my attention to this, when General Warren 
 and General Griffin came down at full speed, both 
 out of breath, with their efforts to rally the panic- 
 stricken men whose honor was their own, and evi- 
 dently under great stress of feeling. Griffin breaks 
 forth first, after his high-proof fashion: "General 
 Chamberlain, the Fifth Corps is eternally damned." 
 I essayed some pleasantry: "Not till you are in 
 heaven." Griffin does not smile nor hear, but 
 keeps right on: "I tell Warren you will wipe out 
 this disgrace, and that's what we're here for." 
 Then Warren breaks out, with stirring phrase, but 
 uttered as if in a strangely compressed tone: 
 "General Chamberlain, will you save the honor of 
 the Fifth Corps? That's all there is about it." 
 That appeal demanded a chivalrous response. 
 Honor is a mighty sentiment, and the Fifth Corps 
 was dear to me. But my answer was not up to 
 the keynote — I confess that. I was expecting 
 
The White Oak Road 73 
 
 every moment an attack on my left flank now that 
 the enemy had disclosed our situation. And my 
 little brigade had taken the brunt of things thus 
 far, but the day before the last, winning a hard- 
 fought field from which they had come off griev- 
 ously thinned and torn and worn, and whence I 
 had but hardly brought myself away. I men- 
 tioned Bartlett, who had our largest and best 
 brigade, which had been but little engaged. "We 
 have come to you; you know what that means," 
 was the only answer. "I'll try it, General; only 
 don't let anybody stop me except the enemy." 
 I had reason for that protest as things had been 
 going. "I will have a bridge ready here in less 
 than an hour. You can't get men through this 
 swamp in any kind of order," says Warren. "It 
 may do to come back on. General ; it will not do to 
 stop for that now. My men will go straight 
 through." So at a word the First Battalion of 
 the 198th Pennsylvania, Major Glenn command- 
 ing, plunges into the muddy branch, waist deep 
 and more,' with cartridge-boxes borne upon the 
 bayonet sockets above the turbid waters; the 
 Second Battalion commanded now by Captain 
 Stanton, since Sickel and McEuen were gone, 
 keeping the banks beyond clear of the enemy by 
 their well-directed fire, until the First has formed 
 in skirmishing order and pressed up the bank. I 
 then pushed through to support Glenn and formed 
 
 ' General Warren states in his testimony before the Court of Inquiry 
 that this stream was sixty feet wide and four or five feet deep. Records, 
 p. 717. 
 
74 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 my brigade in line of battle on the opposite bank, 
 followed by Gregory's in colvunn of regiments. 
 The enemy fell back without much resistance 
 until finding supports on broken strong ground 
 they made stand after stand. Griffin followed 
 with Bartlett's Brigade, in reserve. In due time 
 Ayres' troops got across and followed up on otir 
 left rear, while Crawford was somewhere to our 
 right and rear, but out of sight or reach after we 
 had once cleared the bank of the stream. It seems 
 that General Warren sent to General Meade the 
 following despatch: "I am going to send forward 
 a brigade from my left, supported by all I can get 
 of Crawford and Ayres, and attack. . . . This 
 will take place about 1.45, if the enemy does not 
 attack sooner." This was the only recognition 
 or record we were to have in official reports; it was 
 not all we were to achieve in unwritten history. 
 
 At about this time, Miles, of the Second Corps, 
 had, after the fashion of that corps, gone in hand- 
 somely in his front, somewhat to the right of our 
 division, and pressed so far out as to flank Wise's 
 Brigade on the left of the troops that had attacked 
 Ayres, and drove them back half-way to their start- 
 ing-point. This had the effect to induce the enemy 
 in my front to retire their line to a favorable position 
 on the crest of a ravine where they made another 
 determined stand. After sharp fighting here we 
 drove them across an extensive field into some works 
 they seemed to have already prepared, of the usual 
 sort in field operations — ^logs and earth, — ^from 
 which they delivered a severe fire which caused the 
 
The White Oak Road 75 
 
 right of my line to waver. Taking advantage of 
 the slight shelter of a crest in the open field I was 
 preparing for a final charge, whea i received an 
 order purporting to be Warrenis^jto^halt nay com- 
 mand and hold my position until he cotild recon- 
 noitre conditions in my front. I did not like this 
 much^ It was a hard place to stay in. The staff 
 officer who brought me the order had his horse 
 shot under him as he delivered it. I rode back 
 to see what the order meant. I fovmd General 
 Griffin and General Warren in the edge of the woods 
 overlooking the field, and reported my plans. 
 We had already more than recovered the ground 
 taken and lost by the Second and Third Divisions. 
 The Fifth Corps had been rapidly and completely 
 vindicated, and the question was now of taking 
 the White Oak Road, which had been the object 
 of so much wishing and worrying. It was evi- 
 dent that things could not remain as they were. 
 The enemy would soon attack and drive me back. 
 And it would cost many men even to try to with- 
 draw from such a position. The enemy's main 
 works were directly on my right flank, and how 
 the intervening woods might be utilized to cover 
 an assaiolt on that flank none of us knew. I pro- 
 posed to put Gregory's Brigade into those woods, 
 by battalion in echelon by the left, by which for- 
 mation he would take in flank and reverse in suc- 
 cession any attacks on my right. When Gregory 
 should be well advanced I would charge the works 
 across the field with my own brigade. My plan 
 being approved, I instructed Gregory to keep in 
 
76 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 the woods, moving forward with an inclination 
 towards his left to keep him closed in toward me, 
 and at the same time to open the intervals in his 
 echelons so that he would be free to deUver a 
 strong fire on his own front if necessary, and the 
 moment he struck any opposition to open at once 
 with full volleys and make all the demonstration 
 he could, and I would seize that moment to make a 
 dash at the works in my front. Had I known of 
 the fact that General Lee himself was personally 
 directing affairs in our front, "^ I might not have 
 been so rash, or thought myself so cool. 
 
 Riding forward I informed my officers of my 
 purpose and had their warm support. Soon the 
 roar of Gregory's guns rose in the woods hke a 
 whirlwind. We sounded bugles "Forward!" and 
 that way we go; mounted officers leading, their 
 commands, pieces at the right shoulder until at 
 close quarters. The action and color of the scene 
 were supported by my horse Charlemagne, who, 
 though battered and torn as I was, insisted on 
 coming up. We belonged together; he knew that 
 as well as I. He had been shot down in battle 
 twice before; but his Morgan endurance was under 
 him, and his Kentucky blood was up. 
 
 What we had to do could not be done by firing. 
 This was foot-and-hand business. We went with 
 a rush, not minding ranks nor alignments, but 
 with open front to lessen loss from the long-range 
 rifles. Within effective range, about three hun- 
 
 ' Testimony of General Hunton and General McGowan, Warren 
 Court Records, vol. i., pp. 625 and 648. 
 
The White Oak Road n 
 
 dred yards, the sharp, cutting fire made us reel 
 and shiver. Now, quick or never! On and over! 
 The impetuous 185th New York rolls over the 
 enemy's right, and seems to swallow it up; the 
 198th Pennsylvania, with its fourteen companies, 
 half veterans, half soldiers "bom so," swing in 
 upon their left, striking Hunton's Brigade in front, 
 and for a few minutes there is a seething wave of 
 coimtercurrents, then rolling back, leaving a fringe 
 of wrecks, — and all is over. We pour over the 
 works, swing to the right and drive the enemy into 
 their entrenchments along the Claiborne Road, 
 and then establish ourselves across the White Oak 
 Road facing northeast, and take breath.' 
 
 Major Woodward in his history of the 198th 
 Pennsylvania, giving a graphic outline of the last 
 dash, closes with an incident I had not recorded. 
 "Only for a moment," he says, "did the sudden 
 and terrible blast of death cause the right of the 
 line to waver. On they dashed, every color flying, 
 officers leading, right in among the enemy, leap- 
 ing the breastworks, — a confused struggle of firing, 
 cutting, thrusting, a tremendous surge of force, 
 both moral and physical, on the enemy's breaking 
 lines, — and the works were carried . Private Augus- 
 tus Ziever captured the flag of the 46th Virginia 
 in mounting one of the parapets, and handed it 
 to General Chamberlain in the midst of the mM6e, 
 who immediately gave it back to him, telling him 
 
 ■ General Hunton, since Senator from Virginia, said in his testimony 
 before the Warren Court, speaking of this charge, "I thought it was one 
 of the most gallant things I had ever seen." — Records, Part i, p. 625. 
 
78 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 to keep it and take the credit that belonged to him. 
 Almost that entire regiment was captured at the 
 same time." It scarcely need be added that the 
 man who captured that battle flag was sent with 
 it in person to General Warren, and that he re- 
 ceived a medal of honor from the Government. 
 
 In due time Gregory came up out of the woods, 
 his face beaming with satisfaction at the result, 
 to which his solid work, so faithfully performed, 
 had been essential. His brigade was placed in 
 line along the White Oak Road on our right, and 
 a picket thrown out close up to the enemy's works. 
 This movement had taken three hours, and was 
 almost a continuous fight, with several crescendo 
 passages, and a final cadence of wild, chromatic 
 sweeps settling into the steady keynote, thrilHng 
 with the chords of its unwritten overtones. It 
 had cost us a hundred men, but this was all too 
 great, of men like these, — and for oblivion. It 
 was to cost us something more — a sense of fruit- 
 lessness and thanklessness. 
 
 It seems that in the black moment, when our 
 two divisions were coming back in confusion, 
 Meade had asked Grant to have Sheridan strike the 
 attacking force on their right and rear, as he had 
 been ordered to do in case Warren was attacked. 
 For we have Grant's message to Meade, sent at 
 12.40, which is evidently a reply: "It will take so 
 long to communicate with Sheridan that he can- 
 not be brought to co-operation unless he comes up 
 in obedience to orders sent him last night. I tm- 
 derstood General Forsyth to say that as soon as 
 
The White Oak Road 79 
 
 another division of cavalry got up, he would send 
 it forward. It may be there now. I will send to 
 him again, at once." 
 
 So far, to all appearance, all was well. The 
 Fifth Corps was across the White Oak Road. 
 General Grant's wish that we should extend our 
 left across this road as near to the enemy as possible, 
 so that Sheridan could double up the enemy and 
 drive him north of Hatcher's Run, had been liter- 
 ally fulfilled. It had cost us three days' hard work 
 and hard fighting, and more than two thousand 
 men. It had disclosed vital points. General 
 Grant's notice of all this, as given in his Memoirs 
 (vol. ii., p. 435), representing all these movements 
 as subordinated to those of General Sheridan, is 
 the following: "There was considerable fighting 
 in taking up these new positions for the Second 
 and Fifth Corps, in which the Army of the James 
 had also to participate somewhat, and the losses 
 were quite severe. This is what was known as 
 the battle of the White Oak Road.'" 
 
 The understanding of this affair has been con- 
 fused by the impression that it was the Second 
 
 ' Contrasts are sometimes illumining. When our assault on the 
 enemy's right, March 31st, was followed by General Miles' attack on the 
 Claiborne entrenchments on the second of April, after the exigency at 
 Five Porks had called away most of its defenders, — Generals Ander- 
 son and Johnson, with Hunton, Wise, Gracie, and Fulton's Brigades 
 being of the number, — and the whole rebel army was demoralized, 
 General Grant, now free to appreciate such action, despatches General 
 Meade at oUce: "Miles has made a big thing of it, and deserves the 
 highest praise for the pertinacity with which he stuck to the enemy until 
 he wrung from him victory." Verily, something besides circumstances 
 can "alter cases. " 
 
8o The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Corps troops which attacked and drove back the 
 forces of the enemy that had driven in the Second 
 and Third Divisions of the Fifth Corps. In the 
 comphcated rush and momentous consummation 
 of the campaign, and particxilarly in the singular 
 history of the Fifth Corps for those days, in which 
 corps and division and brigade commanders were 
 changed, there was no one specially charged with 
 the care of seeing to it that the movements of this 
 corps in relation to other corps were properly 
 reported as to the important points of time as 
 well as of place. General Miles, doubtless, sup- 
 posed he was attacking the same troops that had 
 repvilsed part of the Fifth Corps. He moved 
 promptly when Griffin, with infantry and artillery, 
 was checking the onrushing enemy now close upon 
 our front; and, attacking in his own front — ^that 
 of the Second Corps, — ^fought his way valiantly 
 close up to the enemy's works in that part of their 
 line. Miles reported to Humphreys that he was 
 "ahead of the Fifth Corps," which subsequently 
 bore off to the left of him and left a wide interval. 
 This expression must not be understood as direc- 
 tion in a right Kne. It is used rather as related 
 to the angular distance between the Boydton and 
 the White Oak Roads, this being less where Miles 
 was, on the right, and widening by a large angle 
 towards the left, where the Fifth Corps was. It is 
 as one line is ahead of another when advanced in 
 echelon; or as a ship tacking to windward with 
 another is said to be "ahead" of the latter when 
 she is on the weather beam of it. Miles did not 
 
The White Oak Road 8i 
 
 come in contact with a single regiment that had 
 attacked the Fifth Corps. He struck qtiite to 
 the right of us all, attacking in his own front. But 
 it got into the reports otherwise, and "went up." 
 Grant accepted it as given; and so it has got into 
 history, and never can be gotten out. General 
 .Miles did not get ahead of the Fifth Corps that day, 
 but he came up gallantly on its flank and rendered 
 it great assistance by turning the flank of General 
 Wise and keeping the enemy from massing on ovir 
 front. He reports the capttire of the flag of the. 
 47th Alabama, a regiment of Law's old brigade of 
 Longstreet's Corps, which was nowhere near the 
 front of the Fifth Corps on this day. 
 
 In the investigations before the Court of In- 
 quiry, General Warren felt \ander the necessity of 
 excusing himself from the responsibility of the 
 disastrous resiilts of Aj^es' advance on the morn- 
 ing of the thirty-first. He is at pains to show that 
 he did not intend an attack there, although he had 
 suggested the probable success of such movement.'' 
 What then was this advance? Surely not to create 
 a diversion in favor of Sheridan before Dinwiddle. 
 At all events, there was an endeavor to get posses- 
 sion of the White Oak Road. And that could not 
 be done without bringing on a battle, as Ayres 
 said he knew, beforehand,^ and afterwards knew 
 still better, and we also, unmistakably. Warren 
 was evidently impressed with Grant's desire to 
 gain the White Oak Ro ad in or der to strike the 
 
 » Kecords, WarrenJBburt, Part ii., p. 1525. 
 
 ' Testimony, Warren Court Records, Part i., p. 247. 
 
 6 
 
82 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 enemy's right as soon as possible; and he was not 
 aware of any change of intention. 
 
 But however this may have been, when Ayres' 
 advance was repulsed, why was it felt necessary to 
 recover that field and "the honor of the Fifth 
 Corps "? Unless it was the intention to take forci- 
 ble possession of the White Oak Road, the re- 
 covery of that field was not a tactical necessity, 
 but only — ^if I may so speak — a sentimental 
 necessity. And there was no more dishonor in 
 this reconnaissance — ^if it was only that — ^being 
 driven back than in Sheridan's reconnaissance 
 toward Five Forks being driven back upon Din- 
 widdle, for his conduct in which he received only 
 praise. It is evident that General Grant thought 
 an attack was somehow involved; for hearing of 
 Ayres' repulse, he blames General Warren for not 
 attacking with his whole corps, and asks General 
 Meade, "What is to prevent him from pitching in 
 with his whole corps and attacking before giving 
 him time to entrench or retire in good order to his 
 old entrenchments?" This-4s_£ sactly wh at was 
 4one, beforereceiyingJJaas-siaggestionj^^ 
 noT^icirapprovaiTo r even notice, from jSiFajat-Qi: 
 MeadeT^r Warren. As things turned, Warren 
 wasput under a "strong motive to ignore this epi- 
 sode; and as for Grant, he had other interests in 
 mind. 
 
 I In 'our innocence we thought we had gained a 
 great advantage. We had the White Oak Road, 
 and were across it, and as near to the enemy as 
 possible, according to Grant's wish. Now we 
 
The White Oak Road 83 
 
 were ready for the consummate stroke, the achieve- 
 ment of the object for which all this toil and trial 
 had been undergone. It needed but little more. 
 The splendid Second Corps was on our right, 
 close up to the enemy's works. We were more 
 than ready. If only Sheridan with but a single 
 division of our cavalry could disengage himself 
 from his occupation before Dinwiddle, so far away 
 to ovu- rear, and now so far off from any strategic 
 point, where he had first been placed for the pur- 
 pose of raiding upon the Danville and Southside 
 Railroads, — which objective had been distinctly 
 given up in orders by General Grant, — ^if with his 
 audacity and insistance Sheridan could have placed 
 himself in position to obey Grant's order, and come 
 to Warren's assistance when he was attacked, by 
 a dash up between us and Five Forks, we would 
 have swiftly inaugurated the beginning of the 
 end, — Grant's main wish and purpose latest ex- 
 pressed to Sheridan, of ending matters here before 
 he went back. But another, and by far minor, 
 objective interposed. , Instea rl nf tVip. pflvalryj^m- 
 ing to help u s _ complete our victories at the 
 fi^t7"we wer e to g o_ to the rescue of Sheridan at 
 
 t Se rear^ 
 
 Little did we dream that on the evening of the 
 30th, Grant had formed the intention of detaching 
 the Fifth Corps to operate with Sheridan in turn- 
 ing the enemy's right. This was consistent, how- 
 ever, with the understanding in the midnight 
 conference on the 29th. The proposition to Sheri- 
 dan was this: "If your situation in the morning is 
 
84 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 such as to justify the belief that you can turn the 
 enemy's right with the assistance of a corps of 
 infantry entirely detached from the balance of 
 the army, I will so detach the Fifth Corps and 
 place the whole under your command for the opera- 
 tion. Let me know early in the morning as you 
 can your judgment in the matter, and I will make 
 the necessary orders. ..." Precisely what War- 
 ren had proposed to do at that very time on Gra- 
 velly Run, only Sheridan would not have been in 
 chief command. His assistance had, however, 
 been promised to Warren in case he was attacked. 
 Sheridan replies to this on the morning of the 31st. 
 " ... If the ground would permit, I believe I 
 could, with the Sixth Corps, turn the enemy's 
 right, or break through his lines; but I woiild not 
 like the Fifth Corps to make such an attempt." 
 By "turning the enemy's right," and "breaking 
 through his lines," he meant only the isolated 
 position at Five Forks, where for two days past 
 there was nothing to prevent his handling them 
 alone, and easily cutting the Southside Railroad. 
 Fortunately for our cause, Lee was so little like 
 himself as to allow the detachment of a consider- 
 able portion of his infantry from the entrenchments 
 on the evening of the 30th to reinforce this posi- 
 tion, for the sake, probably, of covering the 
 Southside Road, to which, however, this was not 
 the only key. 
 
 Asking for the Sixth Corps shows a character- 
 istic intensity of self-consciousness and disregard 
 of the material elements of the situation wholly 
 
The White Oak Road 85 
 
 tinlike the habits of our commanders in the Army 
 of the Potomac. The Sixth Corps was away on 
 the right center of our Hnes, even beyond Ord 
 with the Army of the James, and the roads were 
 impracticable for a rapid movement like that 
 demanded. Grant's predilection for his forceful 
 and brilliant cavalry commander r,ni]T(f_riot_nyer- 
 come the material difficulty of moving the Sixth 
 Corps from its place in the main line before Pe ters- 
 burgTl ie coula o^ ~offer hi m the Fifth.~ ~And 
 M^ ^gT with meeknessquite su ggestive of a'newly' 
 regenerate natu re, seems to have offered nonobjec- 
 tion to this distraction from the main obj ective, 
 and this inauguration of proceedings which re- 
 peatedly broke his army into detachments serving 
 under other commanders, and whereby, in the 
 popvdar prestige and final honors of the campaign, 
 the commander of the Army of the Potomac 
 found himself subordinated to the militant cavalry 
 commander of the newly made "Middle Military 
 Division." 
 
 So while Warren was begging to be permitted 
 to take his corps through fields sodden saddle-girth 
 deep with rain and mire, and get across the right 
 of Lee's entrenched position, the purpose had 
 already been formed of sending him. and his corps 
 to try to force the enemy from the position where 
 they were gathering for a stand after having forced 
 Sheridan's cavalry back upon its base at the Bois- 
 seau Cross Road, and holding his main body in- 
 active at Dinwiddle a whole day through. And 
 after Warren had accomplished all that he had 
 
86 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 undertaken in accordance with the expressed 
 ■wishes of his superiors, this purpose was to be put 
 into execution. 
 
 Minds accustomed to consider evidence could 
 not resist the impression that at the midnight 
 conference on the rainy night of March 29th, 
 when Grant had announced that they would act 
 together as one army, one item of the arrangement 
 was that nothing should be allowed to interfere 
 with Sheridan's being the leading spirit, and so 
 actual field-commander in this enterprise. I am 
 not sure that we can blame Sheridan or Grant for 
 this if it were so. But it was at least a good work- 
 ing hypothesis on which to explain facts. 
 
 I do not know that Warren was then aware of 
 General Grant's loss of interest in this movement 
 for the White Oak Road since the new plan for 
 Sheridan and the Fifth Corps. Let us recall: at 
 eight o'clock on the evening before, Meade had 
 sent Grant a despatch from Warren, suggesting 
 this movement. Meade forwarded it to Grant, 
 with the remark: "I think his suggestion the best 
 thing we can do under existing circumstances — 
 that is, let Hximphreys relieve GrifQn, and let 
 Warren move on to the White Oak Road, and 
 endeavor to turn the enemy's right." To this 
 Grant replied at 8.35: "It will just suit what I 
 intended to propose — ^to let Humphreys relieve 
 Griffin's Division, and let that move further to 
 the left. Warren should get himself strong to- 
 night." Orders being sent out accordingly, and 
 reported by Meade, General Grant replies late 
 
The White Oak Road 87 
 
 that evening: "Your orders to Warren are right. 
 I do not expect him ta advance in the morning. 
 I supposed, however, that he was now up to the 
 White Oak Road. If he is not, I do not want 
 hitn to move up without further orders."^ Meade 
 repHes: "He.wnLaotJae-a-lk>wed to advance unless, 
 you so direct.'"' 
 
 It is-impossible to think that Warren knew of 
 this last word of Grant on the subject of the White 
 Oak Road, but, as we read it now, it throws light 
 on many things then "dark." It was consistent 
 with Grant's new purpose, but it must have per- 
 plexed Meade. And at the turn things took — ■ 
 and men also — during the next forenoon and mid- 
 day, what must have been the vexation in Grant's 
 imperturbable mind, and the ebullition of the few 
 unsanctified remnants in Meade's strained and 
 restrained spirit, those who knew them can freely 
 imagine. And as for Warren, when all this light 
 broke upon him, in the midst of his own hardly 
 corrected reverses, into what stiUen depths his 
 spirit must have been cast, to find himself liable 
 to a suit for breach of promise for going out to an 
 open-handed meeting with Robert Lee of the White 
 Oak Road when he was already clandestinely en- 
 gaged to Philip Sheridan of Dinwiddle. 
 
 A new anxiety now arose. Just as we had got 
 settled in our position on the White Oak Road, 
 heavy firing was heard from the direction of Sheri- 
 
 ' Records, Warren Court, vol. ii., p. 1242. 
 
 » This is to be compared with Meade's order of 10.30 A.M., March 
 3 1st through General Webb: see ante. 
 
88 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 dan's supposed position. This attracted eager 
 
 attention on our part as, with that open flank, 
 
 Sheridan's movements were all important to us. 
 
 At, my headquarters we had dismounted, but had 
 
 not ventured yet to slacken girths. I was standing 
 
 on a little eminence, wrapped in thoughts of the 
 
 declining day and of these heavy waves of sound, 
 
 which doubtless had some message for us, soon or 
 
 sometime, when Warren came up with anxious 
 
 earnestness of manner, and asked me what I 
 
 thought of this firing, — ^whether it was nearing or 
 
 receding. I believed it was receding towards 
 
 Dinwiddie; that was what had deepened my 
 
 thoughts. Testing the opinion by all tokens 
 
 : cnown to us, Warren came to the same conclusion. 
 
 He then for a few minutes discussed the situation 
 
 /and the question of possible duty for us in the 
 
 /absence of orders. I expressed the opinion that 
 
 / Grant was looking out for Sheridan, and if help 
 
 / were needed, he would be more likely to send 
 
 / Miles than us, as he well knew we were at a criti- 
 
 / cal point, and one important for his ftirther plans 
 
 ( as we understood them, especially as Lee was known 
 
 to be personally directing affairs in our front. 
 
 5ewev«rr"^-^heught_itqtiite probable ' that we 
 
 ^otfdrbe-^amedj Qr iiot ^oing to the suppoftrof 
 
 ^eridairevSi~witheut--^d^;s, wTien~wg~beHeved 
 
 the-enemy.ha d got the advantage~of"himr "WeH, 
 
 will you go? " Warren aScedl "T3erfainly, General, 
 
 if you think it best ; but stirely you do not want to 
 
 abandon this position." At this point. General 
 
 Griffin came up and Warren asked him to send 
 
The White Oak Road 89 
 
 Bartlett's Brigade at once to threaten the rear of 
 the enemy then pressing upon Sheridan. That 
 took away our best brigade. Bartlett was an 
 experienced and capable oflEicer, and the hazardous 
 and trying task he had in hand would be well done. 
 
 Just after sunset Warren came out again, and 
 we crept on our hands and knees out to our ex- 
 treme picket within two hundred yards of the 
 enemy's works, near the angle of the Claiborne 
 Road. There was some stir on our picket line, 
 and the enemy opened with musketry and artil- 
 lery, which gave us all the information we wanted. 
 That saKent was well fortified. The artillery was 
 protected by embrasures and little lunettes, so 
 that they could get a slant- and cross-fire on any 
 movement we should make within their range. 
 
 I then began to put my troops into bivouac for 
 the night, and extended my picket around my left 
 and rear to the White Oak Road, where it joined 
 the right of Ayres' picket line. It was an anxious 
 night along that front. The darkness that deep- 
 ened around and over us was not much heavier 
 than that which shrouded our minds, and to some 
 degree shadowed our spirits. We did not know 
 what was to come, or go. We were alert — Gregory 
 and I — on the picket line nearly all the night, and 
 Griffin came up to us at frequent intervals, wide- 
 awake as we were. 
 
 In the meantime many things had been going 
 on, and going back. It came to us now, in the 
 middle of the night, that Sheridan had been at- 
 tacked by Fitzhugh Lee and Pickett's infantry 
 
The Passing of the Armies 
 
 amd driven pell-mell into Dinwiddle. He could 
 hardly hold himself there. The polarities of things 
 ere reversed. Instead of admitting the Fifth 
 orps to the contemplated honor of turning Lee's 
 ght, or breaking through his lines, between Din- 
 iddie and Five Forks, orders and entreaties 
 ame fast and thick, in every sense of these terms, 
 jfor the Fifth Corps to leave the White Oak Road, 
 Lee's company, and everything else, and rush 
 back five miles to the rear, floundering through 
 the mire and dark, to help Sheridan stay where 
 Pickett andiFitzhughJageJiad put him. Indeed, 
 the suggestive information had leaked . out from 
 Grant's headquarters that Sheridan might be 
 expected to retreat by way of the Vaughan Road, 
 quite to the rear of our entire left. This would 
 leave all the forces that had routed Sheridan at 
 perfect liberty to fall upon our exposed flank, and 
 catch the Fifth Corps to be bandied to and fro 
 between them and the enemy in their fortiflcations 
 near at hand. By the time the Fifth Corps began 
 to be picked to pieces by divisions and brigades, 
 and finally made a shuttle-cock as an entire organi- 
 zation, the situation of things and of persons had 
 very much changed. 
 
 At 6.30 P.M., General Warren received an order 
 to send a brigade to Sheridan's relief by the short- 
 est road threatening the rear of the enemy then 
 in his front. Soon other orders followed, — the 
 last of these being to send the brigade by the 
 Boydton Road. This would have been quite a 
 different matter. But Bartlett had already been 
 
The White Oak Road 91 
 
 gone an hour when this order came, and to the 
 Crump Road, reaching this by aid of a cart track 
 through woods and mire. Of course, Warren 
 could not recall Bartlett. But to comply as nearly 
 as possible with the order, he at once directed 
 General Pearson, who with three of Bartlett's 
 regiments was guarding the trains on the Boydton 
 Road, to move immediately down towards Din- 
 widdle. Pearson got to the crossing of the main 
 stream of Gravelly Run, and finding that the bridge 
 was gone, and the stream not fordable, halted for 
 orders. But things were crowding thick and fast. 
 Pearson's orders were countermanded, and orders 
 came from army headquarters for Griffin's Division 
 to go. 
 
 On the news of Sheridan's discomfitxire. Grant 
 seems first to have thought of Warren's predica- 
 ment. In a despatch to Meade early in the evening 
 he says: "I would much rather have Warren back 
 on the Plank Road than to be attacked front and 
 rear where he is. He shotild entrench, front and 
 rear of his left, at least, and be ready to make a 
 good fight of it if he is attacked in the morning. 
 We will make no offensive movement oiirselves 
 to-morrow." 
 
 That was on the evening before the battle of 
 Five Forks. 
 
 This was a significant despatch; showing among 
 other things Grant's intention of holding on, if 
 possible, for the present at least, to the White 
 Oak Road, at the Claiborne salient; for that was 
 where our two advanced brigades of the Fifth 
 
92 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Corps were holding. This evidence has not been 
 well appreciated by those who have formed their 
 judgment, or written the history, of those three 
 days* battles. And Meade had been trying all 
 day to get up entrenching tools and implements 
 for making the roads passable for wheels. A 
 thousand men had been working at this for the 
 two days past. 
 
 At 8.30 came the notice, — communicated con- 
 fidentially, I remember, — ^that the whole army was 
 going to contract its lines. At nine o'clock came 
 the order from Grant to Meade: " LetWarrea-draw 
 ba ck at once jfcohis posit ion on the Boydton Road, 
 and send a division of infaaitfy- to Sh eridan's r^ief. 
 
 The troops tfv^Tip.TJdp.n sTinnU nt n .rf . n ^r-rrrXc^ ar\(\ 
 
 go down the Boydton Road." Meade promptly 
 sent orders for the corps to retire^ and for Griffin 
 to go to Sheridan, and go at once. 
 
 Apparently nobody at general headquarters 
 seems to have remembered two incidents concern- 
 ing the selection of Griffin's Division for this 
 movement: first, that Bartlett of this division was 
 already by this time down upon the enemy's rear, 
 by another more direct though more difficvilt 
 road, and in a far more effective position for the 
 main purpose than could be reached by the Boyd- 
 ton; and secondly, that the two remaining brigades 
 of this division were with me on and across the 
 White Oak Road, — ^the farthest off from the Boyd- 
 ton Road, and most impeded by difficult ground, 
 of any troops remaining on our lines. Another 
 circumstance, forgotten or ignored, was that the 
 
The White Oak Road 93 
 
 bridge at the Plank Road crossing of Gravelly 
 Run was gone,' and that the stream was not ford- 
 able for infantry. Warren, in reporting his pro- 
 ceeding to comply with the order, reported also 
 the destruction of the bridge and his intention to 
 repair it; but this seems somehow, from first to 
 last, to have added to the impatience felt toward 
 him at those headquarters. 
 
 Grant had experienced a change of mind — a 
 complete and decided one. His imperative order 
 now received meant giving up entirely the position 
 we had just been ordered to entrench, across the 
 hard-won White Oak Road. Within ten minutes 
 from the receipt of this order, Warren directed 
 his division commanders to gather up their pickets 
 and all outlying troops, and take position on the 
 Boydton Road. Griffin was directed to recall 
 Bartlett and then move down the Plank Road and 
 report to Sheridan. But as it would take time 
 for Griffin to get his scattered division together 
 and draw back through the mud and darkness to 
 the Boydton Road, ready to start for Sheridan, 
 Warrei u anx ious to fulfill th e sp irit and object of 
 the^order, rather than rradSia m^ha3iicat3bedi- 
 enceJtoTlie~i5tt^"oi~it, sepis_his nearest ^vision, 
 under A^resTthe-^troiig, stem old soldier of the 
 Mexican War, to start at once for Sheridan. Mean- 
 time, the divisions of Griffin and Crawford were 
 
 ' Colonel Theodore Lyman, aid-de-camp on the staff of General 
 Meade, wrote in his diary on the night of March 30th: "Roads reduced 
 to a hopeless pudding, Gravelly Run swollen to treble its usual size, and 
 Hatcher's Run swept away its bridges and required pontoons." — Records, 
 Warren Court of Inquiry, vol. i., p. 519. 
 
94 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 taking steps to obey the order to mass on the 
 Boydton Road. For my own part, I did not move 
 a man, wishing to give my men all possible time 
 to rest, until Bartlett should arrive, who must 
 come past my rear. 
 
 This was the situation when at half -past ten in 
 the evening came an order throwing ever3rthing 
 into a complete muddle. It was from Meade to 
 Warren: "Send Griffin promptly as ordered by the 
 Boydton Plank Road, but move the balance of 
 your command by the road Bartlett is on, and 
 strike the enemy in rear, who is between him and 
 Dinwiddle. Should the enemy ttim on you, your 
 line of retreat will be by J. M. Brooks' and R. 
 Boisseau's on Boydton Road. You must be very 
 prompt in this movement, and get the forks of the 
 road at Brooks' so as to open to Boisseau's. Don't 
 encumber yourself with anjrthing that will impede 
 your progress, or prevent your moving in any 
 direction across the country." The grim humor 
 of the last suggestion was probably lost on Warren, 
 in his present distraction. "Moving in any direc- 
 tion" in the blackness of darkness across that 
 country of swamps and sloughs and quicksands, 
 wovild be a comedy with the savage forces of nature 
 and of man in pantomime, and a spectacle for the 
 laughter of the gods. Nor was there much left 
 to encumber ourselves with, more especially in 
 the incident of food. Grant had been very anxious 
 about rations for us ever since early morning, 
 when he had said that although there were to be 
 no movements that day, the Fifth Corps must be 
 
The White Oak Road 95 
 
 supplied with three days' rations more. But all 
 the day nothing had been gotten up. Indeed, I 
 do not know how they could have found us, or 
 got to us if they had. Grant had repeated impera- 
 tive orders to Meade to spare no exertions in getting 
 rations forward to the Fifth Corps; whereupon 
 Meade, who had himself eaten salt with this 
 old Corps, gave orders to get supplies to us 
 anyway — ^if not possible for trains, then by pack- 
 mules. The fortunate and picturesque conjunc- 
 ture was that some few rations were thus got up 
 by the flexible and fitting donkey-train, while we 
 were fioimdering and plunging from every direc- 
 tion for our rendezvous on the Boydton Road or 
 elsewhere, just at that witching hour of the night 
 when the flying cross-shuttle of oscillating military 
 orders was weaving such a web of movements 
 between the unsubstantial footing of earth and 
 the more substantial blackness of the midnight 
 sky, matched only by the benighted mind. 
 
 By this last order the Corps was to be turned 
 end for end, and inside out. Poor Warren might 
 be forgiven if at such an order his head swam and 
 his wits collapsed. He responds thus, and has 
 been much blamed for it by those under canvas, 
 then and since: "I issued my orders on General 
 Webb's first despatch to fall back; which made the 
 divisions retire in the order of Ayres, Crawford, 
 and Grifiin, which was the order they could most 
 rapidly move in. I cannot change them to-night 
 without producing confusion that will render all 
 my operations nugatory. I will now send General 
 
96 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Ayres to General Sheridan, and take General 
 Griffin and General Crawford to move against the 
 enemy, as this last despatch directs I shovild. I 
 cannot accomplish the object of the orders I have 
 received.'"^ 
 
 But what inconceivable addition to the confu- 
 sion came in the following despatch from General 
 Meade to Warren at one o'clock at night: "Would 
 not time be gained by sending troops by the Quaker 
 Road? Sheridan cannot maintain himself at Din- 
 widdie without reinforcements, and yours are the 
 only ones that can be sent. Use every exertion 
 to get the troops to him as soon as possible. If 
 necessary, send troops by both roads, and give up 
 the rear attack.'" 
 
 Rapidly changing plans and movements in 
 effecting the single purpose for which battle is 
 delivered are what a soldier must expect; and the 
 ability to form them wisely and promptly illus- 
 trates and tests military capacity. But the con- 
 ditions in this case rendered the execution of these 
 peculiarly perplexing. Orders had to pass through 
 many hands; and in the difficulties of delivery 
 owing to distance and the nature of the ground, 
 the situation which called for them had often en- 
 tirely changed. Hence some discretion as to 
 details in executing a definite purpose must be 
 accorded to subordinate commanders. 
 
 ' See this despatch of 10.55 p.m., March 31st. War Records, Serial 97, 
 p. 367. General Warren, in his testimony before the Court of Inquiry, 
 claimed that the word "Otherwise" should be prefixed to the last 
 sentence of this order, as it was dictated. — Records, p. 730, note. 
 
The White Oak Road 97 
 
 Look for a moment at a summary of the orders 
 Warren received that evening, after we had 
 reached the White Oak Road, affecting his com- 
 mand in detail: 
 
 I. To send a brigade to menace the enemy's 
 rear before Sheridan. 
 
 But he had already of his own accord sent Bart- 
 lett's Brigade, of Griffin's Division, the nearest 
 troops, by the nearest way. 
 
 , 2. To send this brigade by the Boydton Road 
 instead of the Crump. 
 
 This was a verydifferentdirection, and of different 
 tactical effect. It being impossible to recall Bart- 
 lett, Warren sent Pearson, already on the Boydton 
 Road, with a detachment of Bartlett's Brigade. 
 
 3. To send Griffin's Division by the Boydton 
 Road to Sheridan, and draw back the whole corps 
 to that road. 
 
 Griffin's Division being widely and far scattered 
 and impossible to be collected for hours, Warren 
 sends Ayres' Division, nearest, and most disen- 
 gaged. 
 
 4. To send Ayres and Crawford by the way 
 Bartlett had gone, and insisting on Griffin's going 
 by Boydton Road. 
 
 This would cause Ayres and Bartlett to exchange 
 places — crossing each other in a long, difficult, and 
 needless march. 
 
 5. Ajn-es having gone, according to Warren's 
 orders, Griffin and Crawford to go by Bartlett's 
 way. 
 
 But Griffin had sent for Bartlett to withdraw 
 
98 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 from his position and join the division ready to 
 mass on the Boydton Road. 
 
 It is difSctilt to keep a dear head in trying to 
 see into this muddle now: we can imagine the 
 state of Warren's mind. But this was not all. 
 Within the space of two hours, Warren received 
 orders involving important movements for his 
 entire corps, in foiir different directions. These 
 came in rapid succession, and in the following 
 order: 
 
 1. To entrench where he was (on the White 
 Oak Road), and be ready for a fight in the morning. 
 This from Grant. 
 
 2. To fall back with the whole corps from the 
 White Oak Road to the Boydton, and send a di- 
 vision by this road to r,elieve Sheridan. This from 
 Grant. 
 
 3. Griffin to be pushed down the Boydton 
 Road, but the rest of the corps — ^Ayres and Craw- 
 ford — ^to go across the fields to the Crump Road, 
 the way Bartlett had gone, and attack the enemy 
 in rear who were opposing Sheridan. This from 
 Meade. 
 
 This required a -movement in precisely the op- 
 posite direction from that indicated in the precede 
 ing order, — ^which was now partly executed. Ajnres 
 had already started. 
 
 4. Meade's advice to send these troops by the 
 Quaker Road (ten miles around), and give up the 
 rear attack. 
 
 5. To these may be added the actual final 
 movement, which was that Ayres went down the 
 

 ^''^.;«>^^^^^^ 
 
The White Oak Road 99 
 
 Boydton Road, and Griffin and Crawford went 
 by the "dirt" road across the country to the 
 Crump Road as indicated in Meade's previous 
 orders. 
 
 There is one thing more. General Grant thought 
 it necessary, in order to make sure that Sheridan 
 should have complete and absolute command of 
 these troops, to send a special message asking 
 Meade to make that distinct announcement to 
 Sheridan. (Despatch of 10.34 p-^-- March 31st.) 
 To this Meade replies that he had ordered the 
 Fifth Corps to Sheridan, and adds: "The messenger 
 to Sheridan has gone now, so that I cannot add 
 what you desire about his taking command, but 
 I take it for granted he will do so, as he is senior. 
 I will instruct Warren to report to him." 
 
 So General Grant's solicitude lest Sheridan shotild 
 forget to assume command, as the regulations 
 clearly provided, was faithfully ministered to by 
 that expert in nervous diseases, — Meade. 
 
 The orders which came to General Warren that 
 night were to an amazing degree confused and con- 
 flicting. This is charging no blame on any par- 
 ticular person. We wiU call it, if you please, the 
 fault of circumstances. But of course many evil 
 effects of such conditions must naturally fall upon 
 the officer receiving them. Although the responsi- 
 bility according to military usage and ethics 
 rests upon the officer originating the order, yet the 
 practical effects are apt to fall upon the officer 
 trying to execute it. And when he is not allowed 
 to use his judgment as to the details of his own 
 
loo The Passing of the Armies 
 
 command, it makes it very hard for him sometimes. 
 Indeed it is not very pleasant to be a subordinate 
 officer, especially if one is also at the same time 
 a commanding officer. 
 
 But in this case I think the trouble was the 
 result of other recognizable contributory circum- 
 stances, — ^if I might not say causes. 
 
 1. The awkwardness of having in the field so 
 many superior, or rather co-ordinate, commanders: 
 Grant, commanding the United States Armies, 
 with his headquarters immediately with those of 
 the commander of the Army of the Potomac; un- 
 intentionally but necessarily confusing authority 
 and detracting from the dignity and independence 
 of this subordinate; Meade, commanding the 
 Army of the Potomac, only two corps of which 
 were with him, — and one of these half the, time 
 under Sheridan, — the two others being on the 
 extreme right of our entrenched lines, with Ord 
 and the Army of the James between them; Sheri- 
 dan, maintaining an independent cavalry command, 
 but in such ticklish touch with the Fifth Corps 
 that it hardly knew from moment to moment 
 whether it was under Meade or Sheridan. 
 
 2. A double objective: one point being Sheri- 
 dan's independent operations to cut the enemy's 
 communications; the other, the turning of Lee's 
 right and breaking up his army by our infantry. 
 It is true this double objective was in terms given 
 up when Sheridan was informed all were to "act 
 together as one army"; but the trouble is, this 
 precept was never strictly carried into effect; inas- 
 
The White Oak Road loi 
 
 much as General Sheridan was not incKned to 
 serve under any other commander but Grant, and 
 it became difficult to httmor him in this without 
 embarrassing other operations. And, as a matter 
 of fact, the communications were not cut, either 
 on the Southside or the Danville Roads, until our 
 infantry struck them, — Sheridan, however, con- 
 tributing in his own way to this result. 
 
 3. These two supreme commanders being at 
 such distance from the fields of operation on the 
 31st of March, that it was impossible to have a 
 complete mutual understanding at the minute 
 when orders were to be put into effect. Nor could 
 they make themselves alike familiar with material 
 conditions, such as grounds and bridges, or with 
 the existing state of things at important junctures, 
 owing to rapid, unforeseen changes. 
 
 4. Time lost, and sequence confused, by the 
 difficulty of getting over the ground to carry orders 
 or to obey them, owing to the condition of the 
 roads, or lack of them, and the extreme darkness 
 of the night. 
 
 We had very able officers of the general staff 
 at each headquarters; otherwise things might 
 have been worse. The responsibilities, labors, 
 tests, and perils — ^physical and moral — ^that often 
 faU upon staff officers in the field are great and 
 trjdng. Upon their intelligence, alertness, accu- 
 racy of observation and repprt, their promptitude, 
 energy, and endurance, the fate of a corps or a field 
 may depend. 
 
 The frictions, mischances, and misunderstafid- 
 
102 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ings of all these circumstances falling across 
 Warren's path, might well have bewildered the 
 brightest mind, and rendered nugatory the most 
 faithful intentions. 
 
 Meantime, it may well be conceived we who held 
 that extreme front line had an anxious night. 
 Griffin was with me most of the time, and in in- 
 vestigating the state of things in front of our 
 picket lines some time after midnight, we discov- 
 ered that the enemy were carefully putting out 
 their fires all along their own visible front. Griffin 
 regards this as evidence of a contemplated move- 
 ment on us, and he sends this information and 
 suggestion to headquarters, and thus adds a new 
 element to the already well-shaken mixture of 
 uncertainty and seeming cross-purposes. But with 
 us, the chief restilt was an anxiety that forbade a 
 moment's relaxation from intense vigilance. 
 
 Meantime Ayres had kept on, according to 
 Warren's first orders to him, getting a small in- 
 stallment of rations on the way, and arriving at 
 Warren's "Bridge of Sighs" on the Gravelly Run 
 just as it was ready, at about two o'clock in the 
 morning, whence he pushed down the Plank Road 
 and reported to Sheridan before Dinwiddle at the 
 dawning of day. Whereupon he was informed 
 that he had advanced two miles farther than 
 General Sheridan desired, and he had to face about 
 his exhausted men and go back to a cross-road 
 which he had passed for the very sufficient reason 
 that Sheridan had no staff-officer there to guide 
 him where he was wanted. 
 
The White Oak Road 103 
 
 At three o'clock I had got in my pickets, which 
 were replaced by Crawford's, and let my men rest 
 as quietly as possible, knowing there would be 
 heavy burdens laid on them in the morning. For, 
 while dividing the sporadic mule-rations, word 
 came to us that the Fifth Corps, as an organization, 
 was to report to Sheridan at once and be placed 
 under his orders. We kept our heads and hearts 
 as well as we could; for we thought both would be 
 needed. It was near daylight when my command 
 — all there was of Griffin's Division then left on 
 the front — drew out from the White Oak Road; 
 Crawford's Division replacing us, to be brought off 
 carefully under Warren's eye. We shortly picked 
 up Bartlett's returning brigade, halted, way-worn 
 and jaded with marching and countermarching, 
 and struck off in the direction of the Boisseau 
 houses and the Crump Road, following their heavy 
 tracks in the mud and mire marking a way where 
 before there was none; one of those recommended 
 "directions across the country," which this veteran 
 brigade found itself thus compelled to travel for 
 the third time in lieu of rest or rations, churning 
 the sloughs and quicksands with emotions and 
 expressions that could be conjectured only by a 
 veteran of the Old Testament dispensation. 
 
 I moved with much caution in approaching 
 doubtful vicinities, throwing forward an advance 
 guard which, as we expected to encounter the 
 enemy in force, I held immediately in my own hand. 
 Griffin followed at the head of my leading brigade, 
 ready for whatever should happen. Arrived at 
 
104 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 the banks of the south branch of Gravelly Run, 
 where Bartlett had made his dispositions the night 
 before, from a mile in our front the glitter of ad- 
 vancing cavalry caught my eye, saber-scabbards 
 and belt-brasses flashing back the level rays of the 
 rising sun. Believing this to be nothing else than 
 the rebel cavalry we expected to find somewhere 
 before us, we made dispositions for instant attack. 
 But the steady on-coming soon revealed the blue 
 of our own cavalry, with Sheridan's weird battle- 
 flag in the van. I reduce my front, get into the 
 road again, and hardly less anxious than before 
 move forward to meet Sheridan. 
 
 We come face to face. The sunlight helps out 
 the expression of each a little. I salute: "I report 
 to you. General, with the head of Griffin's Divi- 
 sion. ' ' The courteous recognition is given. Then 
 the stern word, more charge than question: "Why 
 did you not come before? Where is Warren?" — 
 "He is at the rear of the column, sir." — "That is 
 where I expected to find him. What is he doing 
 there?" — "General, we are withdrawing from the 
 White Oak Road, where we fought all day. General 
 Warren is bringing off his last division, expecting 
 an attack." Griffin comes up. My responsibility 
 is at an end. I feel better. I am directed to mass 
 my troops by the roadside. We are not sorry for 
 that. Ayres soon comes up on the Brooks 
 Road. Crawford arrives at length, and masses 
 his troops also, near the J. Boisseau house, at the 
 junction of the Five Forks Road. We were on 
 the ground the enemy had occupied the evening 
 
The White Oak Road 105 
 
 before. It was Bartlett's outstretched line in their 
 rear, magnified by the magic lens of night into the 
 semblance of the whole Fifth Corps right upon 
 them, which induced them to withdraw from 
 Sheridan's front and fall back upon Five Forks.' 
 So after all Bartlett had as good as fought a success- 
 ful battle, by a movement which might have been 
 praised as Napoleonic had other forttines favored. 
 General Warren has been blamed, and perhaps 
 justly, for attacking with a single division on the 
 White Oak Road. As he denies that he intended 
 this for an attack, we will put it that he is blamed 
 for not sufficiently supporting a reconnaissance; 
 so that the repulse of it involved the disorderly 
 retreat of two divisions of his corps. It is to be 
 said to this that he very shortly more than recov- 
 ered this ground, driving the enemy with serious 
 loss into his works. But at the worst, was that a 
 fault hitherto unknown among corps or army 
 commanders? Sheridan attacked with a single 
 division when he was ordered to take Five Forks 
 on the day before, and was driven back by a force 
 very inferior to that he had in hand. He was not 
 blamed, although the restilt of this failure was the 
 next day's dire misfortunes. And on this very 
 day, driven back discomfited into Dinwiddie, he 
 was not blamed; he was praised, — and in this high 
 fashion. General Grant in his official report and 
 subsequent histories, speaking of this repulse, says: 
 "Here General Sheridan displayed great general- 
 
 ' Testimony of General Fitzhugh Lee, Warren Court, vol. i., pp. 475 and 
 4S1. 
 
io6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ship. Instead of retreating with his whole com- 
 mand on the main army, to tell the story of superior 
 forces encountered, he deployed his cavalry on 
 foot, leaving only mounted men enough to take 
 charge of the horses. This compelled the enemy 
 to deploy over a vast extent of wooded and broken 
 country and made his progress slow." 
 
 This definition of great generalship was intended, 
 no doubt, to reassure Sheridan; but it was en- 
 couraging all around. It would let quite a number 
 of modest colonels, of both sides, into the temple 
 of fame. 
 
 Warren was deposed from his command the 
 next day, mainly, I have no doubt, under the irri- 
 tation at his being slow in getting up to Sheridan 
 the night before from the White Oak Road. But 
 he was working and fighting all day to hold the 
 advanced left flank of Grant's chosen position, 
 and harassed all night with conflicting and stulti- 
 fying orders, while held between two threatening 
 forces: his left, with nothing to prevent Lee's choice 
 troops disengaged from Sheridan from striking it 
 a crushing blow; and on the other hand, Lee him- 
 self in person, evidently regarding this the vital 
 point, with all the troops he could gather there, 
 ready to deliver on that little front a mortal stroke. 
 For it is not true, as has been stated by high author- 
 ity, that any troops that had fought us on the 
 White Oak Road had gone to Pickett's support at 
 Five Forks that day. And when in the gray of 
 the morning he moved out to receive Sheridan's 
 not overgracious welcome to the Fifth Corps, 
 
The White Oak Road 107 
 
 Warren withdrew under the very eyes of Lee, his 
 rear division faced by the rear rank, ready for the 
 not-improbable attack, himself the last to leave 
 the field that might have been so glorious, now 
 fated to be forgotten. 
 
 I enliven this somber story by a brief personal 
 reference. Somehow — I never quite understood 
 it — General Griffin, in the confusion of that -dash- 
 ing and leaping about, lost his sword — scabbard 
 and all. Seeing him ride up to me in that way, I 
 instantly unhooked my belt and sheathing my 
 sword handed it to the General with the assurance 
 that I should be proud if he would accept it, as a 
 token of what I could not then fully set forth in 
 words. He did accept it and outdid me in the 
 expression of sentiments. One of the noble cap- 
 tains (Rehfuss) of the 198th Pennsylvania instantly 
 handed me one that lay on the line we had carried, 
 — I should say, perhaps, he had carried, — and 
 which was a fine sword with a "Palmetto" en- 
 graved scabbard. I took it until our muster out, 
 when I returned it to Captain Rehfuss, with words 
 of remembrance which he seemed to appreciate. 
 
 This sword of mine has a peculiar history since 
 that time. General Griffin at the close of the war 
 was ordered to a command in Texas, and took 
 this sword with him. Here the yellow fever break- 
 ing out he was advised by the War Department to 
 take a leave of absence and return to his home for 
 a season. He declined; saying that his duty was 
 where his command was, and that he would stay 
 by his men. He took the fever and died before 
 
io8 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 friends could reach him. Sometime afterwards I 
 received through the War Department a box con- 
 taining this sword and General Griffin's cap worn 
 by him in the Civil War, and familiar to all his 
 soldiers, together with the last division battle- 
 flag we carried in the field, and the division bugle, 
 which had sounded all the calls during the last two 
 years of the war. I could not express the regard 
 in which these relics are held. 
 
 It may be presumption to offer opinions on the 
 operations of that day under such commanders. 
 But having ventured some statements of fact that 
 seem like criticism, it may be required of me to 
 suggest what better could have been done, or to 
 show reason why that which was done was not the 
 best. I submit therefore, the following remarks: 
 
 1. Five Forks should have been occupied on 
 the thirtieth as Grant had ordered, and when there 
 was nothing formidable to oppose. The cavalry 
 could then easily strike the Southside Railroad, 
 and the Fifth and Second Corps be extended to 
 envelop the entire right of the enemy's position, 
 and at the opportune moment the general assault 
 could be successfully made, as Grant had contem- 
 plated when he formed his purpose of acting as 
 one army with all his forces in the field. 
 
 2, This plan failing, there were two openings 
 promising good results: one, to let the cavalry 
 linger about Dinwiddie and threaten Lee's com- 
 munications, so as to draw out a large body of his 
 troops from the entrenchments into the open 
 where they could be attacked on equal ground, 
 
The White Oak Road 109 
 
 and his army be at least materially crippled; the 
 other, to direct the assault immediately on the 
 right of Lee's entrenched lines on the Fifth Corps 
 front, — ^the cavalry, of course, sweeping around 
 their flank so as to take them in reverse, while 
 the infantry concentrated on their weakest point. 
 
 A third thing was to do a little of both; and this 
 is what we seem to have adopted, playing from 
 one to the other, fitfully and indecisively, more 
 than one day and night. 
 
 Beyond doubt it was Grant's plan when he 
 formed his new .purpose on the night of the twenty- 
 ninth, to turn the enemy on their Claiborne flank, 
 and follow this up sharply by vigorous assault on 
 the weakest point of their main line in front of 
 Petersburg. The positions taken up by the Fifth 
 and Second Corps are explained by such a purpose, 
 and the trying tasks and hard fighting required 
 of them for the first three days are therein justified. 
 The evidence of this pvirpose is ample. 
 
 Everything was made ready, but the attack was 
 suspended. I am not upon the inquiry whether 
 this was postponed until Sheridan should have 
 done something; my point is that if, or when, this 
 purpose was abandoned for another line of action, 
 other dispositions should have been promptly 
 made, and information given to officers charged 
 with responsibilities, and environed with difficul- 
 ties as Warren was, so that they could catch the 
 change of key. Grant had set the machinery in 
 motion for the White Oak Road, and it was hard 
 and slow work to reverse it when he suddenly 
 
no The Passing of the Armies 
 
 changed his tactics, and resolved to concentrate 
 on Sheridan. Why was the Fifth Corps advanced 
 after Ayres' repulse? The "reconnaissance" had 
 been made ; the enemy's position and strength ascer- 
 tained, and our party had retttrned to the main 
 Hne. There was no justification in pressing so 
 hard on that point of the White Oak Road, at 
 such costs, unless we meant to follow up this at- 
 tack to distinct and final results. This may pos- 
 sibly be laid to Warren's charge in his anxiety and 
 agony to "save the honor of the Fifth Corps." 
 But this was not essential to the grander tactics 
 of the field. I sometimes blame myself, — ^i£ I may 
 presume to exalt myself into such high company, — 
 for going beyond the actual recovery of Ayres' 
 lost field, and pressing on for the White Oak Road, 
 when it was not readily permitted me to do so. 
 It may be that my too youthful impetuosity about 
 the White Oak Road got Warren into this false 
 position across this road, where all night, possessed 
 with seven devils, we tried to get down to Sheridan 
 and Five Forks. But I verily believed that what 
 we wanted was the enemy's right, on the White 
 Oak Road. How could we then know Grant's 
 change of purpose? However, it was all a mistake 
 if we were going to abandon everything before 
 morning. We should have been withdrawn at 
 once, and put in position for the new demonstra- 
 tion. That order to mass on the Boydton Road, 
 received at about ten o'clock at night, should have 
 been given much earlier, as soon as we could 
 safely move away from the presence of the enemy, 
 
The White Oak Road in 
 
 if we were to reinforce Sheridan on his own 
 lines. 
 
 3. But better than this, as things were, it 
 would have been to leave a small force on the White 
 Oak Road to occupy the enemy's attention, and 
 move the whole Fifth Corps to attack the rear of 
 the enemy then confronting Sheridan, as Meade 
 suggested to Grant at ten o'clock at night. , It 
 would have been as easy for us all to go, as for 
 Bartlett. With such force we would not have 
 stopped on Gravelly Run, but would have struck 
 Pickett's and Fitzhugh Lee's rear, and compelled 
 them to make a bivouac under our supervision 
 on that grotmd where they had ' ' deployed. ' ' They 
 would not have been able to retire in the morning, 
 as they were constrained to do by Bartlett's 
 demonstration. 
 
 4. No doubt it was right to save the honor of 
 the cavalry before Dinwiddle, as of the Fifth Corps 
 before the White Oak Road; and Sheridan's with- 
 drawal to that place having lured out so large a 
 force — six thousand infantry and four thousand 
 cavalry — ^from a good miHtary position to the 
 exposed one at Five Forks, it was good tactics to 
 fall upon them and smash them up. Lee, strangely 
 enough, did not think we would do this; so he held 
 himself at the right of his main line on the White 
 Oak Road, as the point requiring his presence; 
 and sent reinforcements from there for his im- 
 periled detachment only so late that they did not 
 report until after the struggle at Five Forks was 
 all over. 
 
112 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 But we owe much to fortune. Had the enemy 
 on the afternoon of the 31st let Fitzhugh Lee with 
 his cavalry reinforcements occupy Sheridan, and 
 rushed Pickett's Division with the two brigades 
 of Johnson's down the White Oak Road upon the 
 flank of the momentarily demoralized Fifth Corps, 
 while Htinton and Grade and Wallace and Wise 
 were on its front, we should have had trouble. 
 Or had they, after repulsing Sheridan towards 
 evening, left the cavalry deployed across his front 
 to baffle his observation, while Pickett should an- 
 ticipate and forestall the movement of Bartlett's 
 Brigade, and come across conversely from that 
 Crump Road to fall upon our untenable flank posi- 
 tion, it would have opened all eyes to the weakness 
 and error of our whole situation. What would 
 have become of us, only some higher power than 
 any there could say. 
 
 So we part, after this strangely broken acquaint- 
 ance, — Sheridan, the Fifth Corps, and White Oak 
 Road. Whether the interventions that brought 
 intended purposes and effects to nought were 
 through the agency of supernal or infernal spirits, 
 we must believe that it was by one of those 
 mysterious overrulings of Providence, or what 
 some might call poetic justice, and some the irony 
 of history, that it befell Sheridan to have vath him 
 at Five Forks and at Appomattox Court House — 
 not slow, nor inconspicuous — the deprecated, but 
 inexpugnable, old Fifth Corps. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FIVE FORKS 
 
 AFTER such a day and night as that of the 
 31st of March, 1865, the morning of April ist 
 found the men of the Fifth Corps strangely- 
 glad they were alive. They had experienced 
 a kaleidoscopic regeneration. They were ready 
 for the next new turn — ^whether of Fortunatus or 
 Torquemada. The tests of ordinary probation 
 had been passed. All the effects of "humiliation, 
 fasting, and prayer," believed to sink the body and 
 exalt the spirit, had been fully wrought in them. 
 At the weird midnight trumpet-caU they rose from 
 their sepulchral fields as those over whom death 
 no longer has any power. Their pulling out for 
 the march in the ghostly mists of dawn looked like 
 a passage in the transmigration of souls — ^not sent 
 back to work out the remnant of their sins as 
 animals, but lifted to the "third plane" by those 
 three days of the underworld, — eliminating sense, 
 incorporating soul. 
 
 The vicissitudes of that day, and the grave and 
 whimsical experiences out of which we emerged 
 into it, exhibited the play of that curious law of 
 8 113 
 
114 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 the universe seen in tides, reactions, or reversals 
 of polarities at certain points of tension or extremes 
 of pressure, and which appears also in the mixed 
 relations of men and things. There are pressure- 
 points of experience at which the insupportably 
 disagreeable becomes "a jolly good time." When 
 you cannot move in the line of least resistance, you 
 take a very pectiliar pleasure in crowding the point 
 of greatest resistance. No doubt there is in the 
 ultimate reasons of human probation special place 
 for that quality of manhood called perseverance, 
 patience, pluck, push, persistence, pertinacity, 
 or whatever name beginning with this "explosive 
 mute," the excess of which, exhibited by persons 
 or things, is somewhat profanely referred to as 
 "pure cussedness." 
 
 The pleasantries associated with April ist were 
 not much put in play: none of those men were going 
 to be "fooled" that day. 
 
 When we joined the cavalry, some of us were 
 aware of a little shadow cast between the two chief 
 luminaries, — ^him of the cavalry and him of the 
 infantry; but that by no means darkened our disks. 
 If not hale fellows, we were well met. The two 
 arms of the service embraced each other heartily, 
 glad to share fortunes. Particularly we; for the 
 cavalry had the habit of being a little ahead, and 
 so, as the Germans said, "got all the pullets." 
 And we thought the cavalry, though a little piqued 
 at our not going down and picking up what they 
 had left at Dinwiddie the night before, were quite 
 willing we shotild share whatever they should get 
 
Five Forks 115 
 
 to-day. Sheridan had also come to the opinion 
 that infantry was "a good thing to have around," 
 — ^however by some queer break in the hierarchy 
 of honor subordinated to the chevaliers, the biped 
 to the quadruped, and by some freak of et3miology 
 named "infantry" — the speechless — ^whether be- 
 cause they had nothing to answer for, or knew 
 too much and mustn't tell. We were glad to be 
 united to Sheridan, too, after the broken engage- 
 ments of the day before, perhaps renewed reluc- 
 tantly by him; glad to fight under him, instead of 
 away from him, hoping that when he really struck, 
 the enemy would hurt more than friends. 
 
 We cannot wonder that Sheridan might not be 
 in the best of humor that morning. It is not 
 pleasant for a temperament like his to experience 
 the contradiction of having the ardent expectations 
 of himself and his superior turned into disaster and 
 retreat. It was but natural that he should be 
 incensed against Warren. For not deeply im- 
 pressed with the recollection that he had found 
 himself unable to go to the assistance of Warren 
 as he had been ordered to do, his mind retained 
 the irritation of vainly expecting assistance from 
 Warren the moment he desired it, without consider- 
 ing what Warren might have on hand at the same 
 time. Nor could Warren be expected to be in a 
 very exuberant mood after such a day and night. 
 Hence the auguries for the cup of loving-kindness 
 on this crowning day of Five Forks were not 
 favorable. Each of them was tmder the shadow 
 of yesterday: one, of a mortifying repulse; the 
 
ii6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 other, of thankless success. Were Warren a mind- 
 reader he woiild have known it was a time to put 
 on a warmer manner towards Sheridan, — ^for a 
 voice of doom was in the air. 
 
 That morning, two hours after the head of the 
 Fifth Corps column had reported to General Sheri- 
 dan, an officer of the artillery staff had occasion 
 to find where the Fifth Corps was, evidently not 
 knowing that under orders from superiors it had 
 been like "all Gaul," divided into three parts, — 
 and went for that purpose to the point where 
 Warren had had his headquarters the night before. 
 Warren, in leaving at daybreak, had not removed 
 his headquarters' material; but in consideration 
 for his staff, who had been on severe duty all 
 night, told Colonel Locke, Captain Melcher, and a 
 few others to stay and take a little rest before 
 resuming the tasking duties of the coming day. 
 It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the 
 artillery officer reached Warren's old headquarters, 
 and suddenly rousing Colonel Locke asked where 
 the Fifth Corps was. Locke, so abruptly wakened, 
 his sotuid sleep bridging the break of his last 
 night's consciousness, rubbed his eyes, and with 
 dazed simplicity answered that when he went to 
 sleep the Fifth Corps was halted to build a bridge 
 at Gravelly Run on the Plank Road. No time 
 was lost in reporting this at headquarters, without 
 making further inquiries as to the whereabouts of 
 the Fifth Corps, now for three hours with Sheri- 
 dan on the Five Forks Road. Thereupon General 
 Grant forthwith sends General Babcock to tell 
 
Five Forks 117 
 
 General Sheridan that "if he had any reason to be 
 dissatisfied with General Warren," or as it has 
 since been put, "if in his opinion the interests of 
 the service gave occasion for it," he might relieve 
 him from command of his corps.^ 
 
 " So do we walk amidst the precipices of our fate." 
 
 Griffin's and Crawford's Divisions were massed 
 near the house of J. Boisseau, on the road leading 
 from Dinwiddie Court House to Five Forks. Ayres 
 was halted a mile back at the junction of the Brooks 
 Road, which he had reached by his roundabout, 
 forced march during the night. We were waiting 
 for Sheridan, at last. And he was waiting until 
 the cavalry should complete one more "reconnois- 
 sance," to determine the enemy's position and 
 disposition at Five Forks, three miles northward. 
 
 Although the trains which had got up were 
 chiefly ammunition wagons, a considerable halt 
 was indicated and the men seized the occasion to 
 eat, to rest, to sleep, — exercises they had not much 
 indulged in for the last three days, — ^and to make 
 
 'Records, Warren Court, testimony of Captain Warner, p. 38; of 
 General Babcock, p. 901; also of General Sheridan, p. 93; and General 
 Grant, p. 1028. 
 
 General Grant afterwards stated that although this information about 
 the bridge was the occasion, it was not the reason, of his authorization 
 of General Sheridan to depose General Warren from his command. 
 Ibid., p. 1030. 
 
 That bridge — for a non-existent one — ^had a strange potency. Con- 
 sidering how various were the tests of which it was made the instrument, 
 it well rivals that other "pons asinorum" of Euclid; and certainly the 
 associated triangle was of surpassing attributes; for the squares de- 
 scribed on the two "legs" of it were far more than equal to that so 
 laboriously executed on its hypothenuse. 
 
ii8 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 their toilets, which means to wring out their few 
 articles of clothing, seriatim, and let the stin shine 
 into the bottom of their shoes; and also — ^those 
 who could — ^to make up their vital equation of 
 three days' rations — ^hard-tack, pork, coffee, and 
 sugar — ^by stuffing their haversacks with twenty 
 rounds extra ammunition. 
 
 Meantime those of us who were likely to have 
 some special responsibilities dviring the approach- 
 ing battle, had anxious thoughts. We had drawn 
 away from the doubly confused conflict of yester- 
 day; we were now fairly with Sheridan, cut off 
 from reach of other wills, absolved from the task 
 of obeying commands that made our action seem 
 like truants driving hoops, — ^resulting mostly in 
 tripping up dignitaries, and having a pretty hard 
 time ourselves, without paternal consolations when 
 we got home. We expected something out of the 
 common order now. General Griffin came and 
 sat by me on the bank-side and talked quite freely. 
 He said Sheridan was much disturbed at the opera- 
 tions of the day before, as Grant's language to him 
 about this had been unwontedly severe, and that 
 all of us would have to help make up for that day's 
 damage. 
 
 ' This was in a despatch sent by Grant to Sheridan at about 2 
 P.M. on the 31st of March, just as I was advancing, after Ayres' 
 repulse. This read : " Warren's and Miles' Divisions are now advancing. 
 I hope your cavalry is up where it will be of assistance. Let me know 
 how matters stand now with the cavalry; where they are; what their 
 orders, etc. If it had been possible to have had a division or two of them 
 well up on the right-hand road taken by Merritt yesterday, they could 
 have fallen on the enemy's rear as they were pursuing Ayres and Craw- 
 ford." — Records, Warren Court, p. 1313. 
 
Five Forks 119 
 
 He told me also that Grant had given Sheridan 
 authority to remove Warren from command of the 
 corps, when he found occasion, and that we should 
 see lively times before the day was over. We 
 remarked how these things must affect Sheridan: 
 Grant's censure of his failures the day before; the 
 obligation to win a decisive battle to-day; and the 
 power put in his hands to remove Warren. We 
 could not but sympathize with Sheridan in his 
 present perplexities, and, anxious for Warren, 
 were resolved to do our part to make things go 
 right.' 
 
 ' The mental attitude of the parties concerned will be understood by 
 reference to the despatches of the Hon. Charles A. Dana to the War 
 Office during the previous summer. They were doubtless known to 
 Sheridan, as to the higher officers of the Fifth Corps. Those of May gth 
 and I2th, 1864, referring to Warren's movements as slow and piecemeal, 
 so as to fail of the desired effect in the plans of the general commanding 
 the army. He accuses him of not handUng his corps in a mass, and even 
 implies a positive disobedience of orders on his part in attacking with a 
 division when ordered by Grant to attack with his whole corps. (Serial 
 No. 67, pp. 64, 68.) 
 
 Still the Fifth Corps "got in '' enough to lose ten thousand six hundred 
 and eighty-six men in the first two fights. (Dana's report, War Records, 
 Serial 64, p. 71.) 
 
 Even more light is turned on. For no despatch of Dana's concerning 
 Warren compares in severity with Dana's to the Secretary of War, 
 July 7, 1864, denouncing General Meade, and advising that he be re- 
 moved from the command of the army. (Serial No. 80, p. 35.) 
 
 It now appears that Warren was in great disfavor with Meade also, 
 after arriving before Petersburg. Meade called upon Warren to ask to 
 be relieved from command of his corps on the alternative that charges 
 would be preferred against him. (Dana's despatch, June 20, 1864, War 
 Records, Serial No. 80, p. 26.) 
 
 Meade was much displeased, too, with Warren for his characteristic 
 remark to the effect that no proper superior commanding officer was 
 present at the time of the Mine explosion, to take control of the whole 
 affair. 
 
 And now, with Sheridan against him, poor Warren may well have 
 
120 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 The troops had enjoyed about fotir hours of this 
 unwonted rest when, the cavahy having completed 
 its reconnoissance, we were ordered forward. We 
 turned off on a narrow road said to lead pretty- 
 nearly to the left of the enemy's defenses at Five 
 Forks on the White Oak Road. Crawford led, 
 followed by Griffin and Ayres, — ^the natural order 
 for prompt and free movement. The road had 
 been much cut up by repeated scurries of both the 
 contending parties, and was even yet obstructed 
 by cavalry led horses, and other obstacles, which 
 it would seem strange had not been got off the 
 track during aU this halt. We who were trying to 
 foUow closely were brought to frequent standstill. 
 This was vexatious, — our men being hurried to 
 their feet in heavy marching order, carrying on 
 their backs perhaps three days' life for themselves 
 and a pretty heavy installment of death for their 
 antagonists, and now compelled every few minutes 
 to come to a huddled halt in the muddy road, 
 "marking time" and marking place also with deep 
 discontent. In about two hours we get up where 
 Sheridan wants us, in some open ground and thin 
 woods near the Gravelly Run Church, and form as 
 we arrive, by brigades in coltimn of regiments. The 
 men's good nature seems a little ruffled on account 
 of their manner of marching or being marched. 
 They have their own way of expressing their 
 wonder why we could not have taken a shorter 
 
 wished at least for David's faculty of putting his grievances into song, 
 with variations on the theme: "Many bulls have compassed me about; 
 yea, many strong bulls of Bashan. " 
 
Five Forks 121 
 
 road to this cavalry rendezvous, rather than to be 
 dragged around the two long sides of an acute- 
 angled triangle to get to it, — ^why the two-legged 
 animals might not have taken the short route and 
 the four-legged ones the long one, — ^in short, what 
 magic relics there were about "J. Boisseau's," 
 that we shotild be obliged to make a painful 
 pilgrimage there before we were purified enough to 
 die at Five Forks. 
 
 It is now about four o'clock. Near the church 
 is a group of restless forms and grim visages, 
 expressing their different tempers and tempera- 
 ments in fvill tone. First of all the chiefs: Sheri- 
 dan, dark and tense, walking up and down the 
 earth, seeking — ^well, we will say — some adequate 
 vehicle or projectile of expression at the prospect 
 of the sun's going down on nothing but his wrath; 
 evidently having availed himself of some incidental 
 instrumentalities to this end, more or less explicit 
 or expletive. Warren is sitting there like a caged 
 eagle or rather like a man making desperate effort 
 to command himself when he has to obey unwel- 
 come orders, — all his moral energies compressed 
 into the nerve centers somewhere behind his eyes 
 and masked pale cheek and compressed lip. 
 Griffin is alert and independent, sincere to the core, 
 at his ease, ready for anything, — ^for a dash at the 
 enemy with battery front, or his best friend with 
 a bit of satire when his keen sense of the incongru- 
 ous or pretentious is struck; Bartlett, with drawn 
 face, like a Turkish cimetar, sharp, springy, curved 
 outward, damascened by various experience and 
 
122 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 various emotion; Crawford, a conscious gentle- 
 man, having the entree at all headquarters, some- 
 what lofty of manner, not of the iron fiber, nor 
 spring of steel, but punctilious in a way, obeying 
 orders in a certain literal fashion that saved him 
 the censure of superiors, — a pet of his State, and 
 likewise, we thought, of Meade and Warren, 
 judging from the attention they always gave him, 
 — ^possibly not quite fairly estimated by his 
 colleagues as a military man, but the ranking 
 division commander of the corps. Reticent, level- 
 headed Baxter was by, and fiery Dick Coulter bold 
 as a viking. Ayres comes up after a little, ahead 
 of his troops, bluff and gruff at questions about the 
 lateness of his column; twitching his mustache in 
 lieu of words, the sniff of his nostrils smelling the 
 battle not very much afar; sound of heart, solid 
 of force, all the manly and military qualities ready 
 in reserve, — ^the typical old soldier. 
 
 During this impatient waiting for the seemingly 
 slow preparatory formation, oiu- spiritual wheels 
 were lubricated by the flow of discussion and ex- 
 planation about the plan of attack. Sheridan 
 took a sabre or scabbard and described it graphi- 
 cally on the light earth. The plan in general was 
 for the cavalry to occupy the enemy's attention 
 by a brisk demonstration along the right front of 
 their works, while the Fifth Corps should fall upon 
 their left and rear, by a sort of surprise if possible, 
 and scoop them out of their works along the White 
 Oak Road, and capture or disorganize them. 
 The report of the cavalry reconnoissance, as it 
 
Five Forks 123 
 
 came to us, was that the enemy had fortified this 
 road for nearly a mile westward, and about three- 
 quarters of a mile eastward from Five Forks, and 
 at the extreme left made a return northerly for 
 perhaps one hundred and fifty yards, to cover that 
 flank. As I understood it, the formation and 
 advance were to be such that Ayres shovdd strike 
 the angle of the "return," and Crawford and 
 Grifl&n sweep around A3rres's right, flanking their 
 ' ' return ' ' and enfilading their main line. This was 
 perfectly clear, and struck us all as a splendid piece 
 of tactics, cyclone- and Sheridan-like, promising that 
 our success was to be qtiick and certain. Ovtr some- 
 what jaded faculties were roused to their full force. 
 As Ayres' troops were forming, officers of the 
 other two divisions were taking their respective 
 stations. I was in my place but had not yet 
 mounted, when General Fred Winthrop of Ayres' 
 leading brigade came over and said: "Dear old 
 fellow, have you managed to bring up anjrthing to 
 eat? We moved so suddenly I had to leave every- 
 thing. I have had scarcely a mouthful to-day." 
 I sent back an orderly and hurried up whatever 
 we had. The best was poor, and there was not 
 much of it. We sat there on a log, close behind the 
 lines, and acted host and guest, while he opened 
 his heart to me as men sometimes will quite 
 differently from their common custom, under the 
 shadow of a forecasting presence. It was a homely 
 scene and humblest fare, but ever to be held in 
 memory as the last supper of high companionship 
 and vision of the higher. Half an hour afterwards, 
 
124 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 in the flame and whirl of battle, leading his brigade 
 like a demigod, as in a chariot of fire he was lifted 
 to his like. 
 
 The corps formation was: Ayres on the left, 
 west of the Chtirch Road, the division in double 
 brigade front in two lines, and Winthrop with the 
 First Brigade in reserve, in rear of his center; 
 Crawford on the right, east of the road, in similar 
 formation; Griffin in rear of Crawford, with Bart- 
 lett's Brigade in double coltimn of regiments, three 
 lines deep; my own brigade next, somewhat in 
 echelon to the right, with three battalion Hnes in 
 close order, while Gregory at first was held massed 
 in my rear. General Mackenzie's cavalry, of the 
 Army of the James, had been ordered up from 
 Dinwiddle, to cross the White Oak Road and move 
 forward with us covering our right flank. Never- 
 theless, just as we were moving. General Griffin 
 cautioned me : ' ' Don't be too sure g,bout Macken- 
 zie; keep a sharp lookout for your own right." 
 Accordingly I had Gregory throw out a small 
 battalion as skirmishers and flankers, and march 
 another regiment by the flank on our right, ready 
 to face outwards, and let his other regiment follow 
 in my brigade column. 
 
 At four o'clock we moved down the Gravelly 
 Run Church Road, our lines as we supposed nearly 
 parallel to the White Oak Road, with Ayres 
 directed on the angle of the enemy's works. Just 
 as we started there came from General Warren a 
 copy of a diagram of the proposed movement. 
 I was surprised at this. It showed our front of 
 
'l^im^^mS^S^ 
 
Five Forks 125 
 
 movement to be quite oblique to the White Oak 
 Road, — as much as half a right angle, — ^with 
 the center of Crawford's Division directed upon 
 the angle, and Ayres, of course, thrown far to the 
 left, so as to strike the enemy's works halfway 
 to Five Forks. GrifSn was shown as following 
 Crawford; but the whole direction was such that 
 aU of us would strike the enemy's main line before 
 any of us could touch the White Oak Road. The 
 diagram, far from clearing my mind, added confu- 
 sion to surprise. The order read: "The line will 
 move forward as formed till it reaches the White 
 Oak Road, when it wUl swing around to the left, 
 perpendicular to the White Oak Road. General 
 Merritt's and General Custer's cavalry will charge 
 the enemy's line as soon as the infantry get 
 engaged." This was perfectly clear. The whole 
 corps was to reach the White Oak Road before any 
 portion of it should change direction to the left; 
 Ayres was to attack the angle, and the rest of us 
 swing round and sweep down the entrenchments 
 along the White Oak Road. 
 
 The diagram showed the Gravelly Run Church 
 Road as leading directly to and past the angle of 
 the enemy's works. The formation shown led us 
 across the Church Road and not across the White 
 Oak Road at all, which at the point of direction 
 was behind the enemy's entrenched lines. Accord- 
 ing to this, Crawford and not Ayres would strike 
 the angle. Ajn-es wotild strike the breastworks 
 well up toward the cavalry, — quite a way from 
 any support Griffin's division could give him. 
 
126 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 111 at ease in such uncertainty I rode over to 
 General Griffin, who with General Warren was 
 close on my left at this early stage of the move- 
 ment, and asked for an explanation. Griffin 
 answers quickly: "We will not worry ourselves 
 about diagrams. We are to follow Crawford. 
 Circumstances will soon develop our duty." In 
 the meantime we were moving right square down 
 the Church Road, and not oblique to it as the 
 diagram indicated. However, I quieted m.y mind 
 with the reflection that the earth certainly was a 
 known quantity, and the enemy susceptible to 
 discovery, whatever might be true of roads, dia- 
 grams, or understandings. 
 
 Crawford crossed the White Oak Road, his line 
 nearly parallel to it, without encountering the 
 expected angle. This road, it is to be remarked, 
 made a considerable bend northerly at the crossing 
 of the Church Road, so that Ayres had not reached 
 it when Crawford and even Griffin were across. 
 We naturally supposed the angle was still ahead. 
 Crawford immediately ran into a sharp fire on 
 his right front, which might mean the crisis. I 
 had been riding with Griffin on the left of my 
 front line, but now hastened over to the right, 
 where I found Gregory earnestly carrying out my 
 instructions to guard that flank. I caught a 
 glimpse of some cavalry in the woods on our right, 
 which I judged to be Roberts' North Carolina 
 Brigade, that had been picketing the White Oak 
 Road, and so kept Gregory on the alert. The 
 influence of the sharp skirmish fire on Crawford's 
 
Five Forks 127 
 
 right tended to draw the men towards it; but I 
 used all my efforts to shorten step on the pivot and 
 press the wheeling flank, in order to be ready for 
 the "swing" to the left. Still, the firing ahead 
 kept me dubious. It might mean Fitzhugh Lee's 
 cavalry making a demonstration there; but from 
 the persistence of it was more likely to mean 
 infantry reinforcements sent the enemy from the 
 Claiborne entrenchments where we had left them 
 the day before. It was afterwards seen how near 
 it came to being that. ' 
 
 It was, in fact, Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry, com- 
 manded now by the experienced and able Munf ord 
 who had dismounted his men and posted them at 
 the junction of the Church Road and the White 
 Oak Road, behind some light rail defenses which 
 they had hastily thrown up. From this they were 
 being slowly driven by Crawford's advance. We 
 crossed the White Oak Road without hearing any- 
 thing from Ayres, a circumstance which troubled 
 me very much, as our division was supposed to be 
 in supporting distance of both Crawford and Ayres. 
 It was now apparent that the road-crossing Craw- 
 ford had struck was not at the angle of the enemy's 
 entrenched line, but at least a gunshot to the east 
 of this, — ^in fact it was a thousand yards away. 
 
 > Wise, Grade, and Hunton's Brigades had been ordered out of the 
 Claiborne entrenchments that afternoon to attack the right flank of the 
 Fifth Corps; but being obliged to take a roundabout way and getting 
 entangled among the streams and marshes north of the White Oak Road, 
 they were too late to reach the scene of action until allwas over. — Records, 
 Warren Court, Lee's testimony, p. 473; McGowan's, p. 651; Hunton's, 
 p. 626. 
 
128 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Mackenzie had crowded off Roberts' cavalry 
 towards its right near Burgess' Mill, — ^this cavalry 
 not being under Fitzhugh Lee or Munford but 
 taking orders directly from the infantry general 
 R. H. Anderson. My orders were in general to 
 follow Crawford. 
 
 I had managed, however, to gain towards the 
 left until we had fairly got past Crawford's left 
 rear. Some firing we had heard in the supposed 
 direction of our cavalry, but it did not seem heavier 
 than that in Crawford's front. We were moving 
 rapidly, and had been out about twenty minutes 
 from the church, and perhaps nearly a mile distant, 
 when a sudden burst of fire exactly on our left 
 roused very definite thoughts. This could only 
 be from Ayres' attack. I halted my line and rode 
 ahead through the woods to some high, cleared 
 ground, the southeastern corner of a large field, 
 known aS the "Sydnor field," along the opposite 
 edge of which I cotJd see strong skirmishing along 
 Crawford's front; and ttu-ning southerly, looking 
 across broken, scrubby ground, could see Ajrres* 
 troops engaged in a confused whirl of struggling 
 groups, with fitful firing. This was about as far 
 away, I judged, as Crawford's skirmishing, about 
 six hundred yards. The great gap between these 
 engagements made me feel that something was 
 "all wrong." I was anxious about my duty. 
 My superiors were not in sight. Bartlett had 
 closely followed Crawford, away to my right. 
 But I could see the corps flag in the Sydnor field, 
 moving towards Crawford, and on the other side, 
 
Five Forks 129 
 
 in a ravine half-way to Aj^es, I saw the division 
 flag. There was Ajn-es fighting alone, and that 
 was not in the program. There was Griffin down 
 there; that was order enough for me, and I took the 
 responsibility of looking out for the left instead of 
 the right, where my last orders committed me. I 
 pulled my brigade out of the woods by the left 
 flank, telling Gregory to follow; and, sending to 
 Bartlett to let him know what I was doing, pushed 
 across a muddy stream and up a rough ravine 
 towards Ayres. Half-way up, Griffin came to meet 
 me, — ^never more welcome. He gave the look 
 I wanted, and without coming near enough for 
 words waved me to foUow up to the head of the 
 ravine and to attack on my right, along the bank 
 where, hidden by brush and scrub, the enemy had a 
 line perpendicular to their main one on the White 
 Oak Road, and were commencing a slant fire in 
 Ayres' direction. Griffin rode past me towards 
 Warren and Bartlett. 
 
 At the head of the gully aU we had to do was to 
 front into line of battle, and scramble up the rough 
 brambly steep. The moment we showed ovir 
 heads, we were at close quarters with the enemy. 
 We exchanged volleys with good will, and then 
 came the rush. Our lines struck each other 
 obliquely, like shutting jaws. It was rather an 
 awkward movement; for we had to make a series 
 of right half-wheels by battalion to meet the fire, 
 and all the while gain to the left. Thus we stopped 
 that cross-fire on Ayres, who was now lost from 
 sight by intervening scrubby woods. The brunt 
 
130 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 of this first fell on my stalwart 185th New York, 
 Colonel Sniper; but Gregory" soon coming in by 
 echelon on their right took the edge off that enfilad- 
 ing fire. 
 
 Ayres' fitful fire was approaching, and I rode 
 over towards it. Somewhere near the angle of the 
 "return" I met Sheridan. He had probably seen 
 me putting my men in, and hence I escaped censure 
 for appearing. Indeed his criticism seemed to be 
 that there was not more of me, rather than less. 
 "By G — , that's what I want to see!" was his 
 greeting, "general officers at the front. Where are 
 your general officers?" I replied that I had seen 
 General Warren's flag in the big field north of us, 
 and that seeing Ayres in a tight place I had come to 
 help him, and by General Griffin's order. "Then," 
 cried he, with a vigor of utterance worthy of the 
 "army in Flanders," "you take command of all 
 the infantry round here, and break this dam — " 
 I didn't wait to hear any more. That made good 
 grammar as it stood. I didn't stand for anything, 
 but spurred back to some scattered groups of men, 
 demoralized by being so far in the rear, and not 
 far enough to do them any good, yet too brave to 
 go back. Captain Laughlin of Griffin's staff came 
 along, and I took him with me down among these 
 men to get them up. I found one stalwart fellow 
 on his hands and knees behind a stump, ans\5rering 
 with whimsical grimaces to the bullets coining 
 pretty thick and near. "Look here, my good fel- 
 
 • His regiments were the 187th, 1 88th, and 189th New York; thus the 
 four New York regiments constituted the right of my command. 
 
Five Forks 131 
 
 low," I called down to him, "don't you know you'll 
 be killed here in less than two minutes? This is 
 no place for you. Go forward!" "But what can 
 I do?" he cried; "I can't stand up against all this 
 alone!" "No, that's just it," I replied. "We're 
 forming here. I want you for gviide center. Up, 
 and forward!" Up and out he came like a hero. 
 I formed those "reserves" on him as guide, and 
 the whole queer line — ^two hundred of them — ^went 
 in right up to the front and the thick of it. My 
 poor fellow only wanted a token of confidence and 
 appreciation to get possession of himself. He was 
 proud of what he did, and so I was for him. 
 
 I let the staff officers take these men in, for I had 
 caught sight of A3a-es' Third Brigade coming out 
 of the woods right behind me, and standing in the 
 further edge of the scrubby field. The men were 
 much excited, but were making a good, line. 
 General Gwyn was riding up and down their front 
 in a demonstrative manner, but giving no sign of 
 forward movement. I thought this strange for him 
 and bad for us all, in the pinch things then were 
 at, and with the warrant Sheridan had given me 
 galloped down to him and asked him if he was 
 acting under any particular orders from General 
 Ayres. "No, General," he replied with an air of 
 relief, "I have lost Ayres. I have no orders. I 
 don't know what to do." "Then come with me, " 
 I said; "I wiU take the responsibility. You shall 
 have all credit. Let me take your brigade for a 
 moment!" His men gave me good greeting as 
 I rode down their front and gave the order, "For- 
 
132 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ward, right oblique!" On they came, and in they 
 went, gallantly, gladly, just when and where they 
 were needed, with my own. brigade fighting the 
 "return," and ready to take touch with Ayres. 
 His fire was advancing rapidly on my left, and I 
 rode over to meet him. Sheridan was by my side 
 in a moment, very angry. ' ' You are firing into my 
 cavalry!" he exclaims, his face darkening with a 
 checked expletive. I was under a little pressure, 
 too, and put on a bold air. "Then the cavalry 
 have got into the rebels' place. One of us will have 
 to get out of the way. What will you have us do. 
 General? " " Don't you fire into my cavalry, I tell 
 you!" was the fierce rejoinder. I felt a little left 
 out in the cold by General Sheridan's calling 
 them "my cavalry," as if we were aliens and did 
 not belong to him also; but, whosesoever they were, 
 I could not see what business they had up here at 
 the "angle." This was our part of the field. The 
 plan of the battle put them at the enemy's right 
 and center, a mile away on the Dinwiddie Road 
 and beyond. 
 
 Fortunately for me, Ayres comes up, his troops 
 right upon the angle — ^the right, the Maryland 
 Brigade on the "return" — ^brave Bowerman 
 down — and Winthrop's Brigade — ^gallant Win- 
 throp gone — ^reaching beyond, across the White 
 Oak Road, driving a crowd before them. I have 
 only time to say to Ayres, "Gwyn is in on the 
 right"; for Sheridan takes him in hand. "I tell 
 you again. General A5T-es, you are firing into my 
 cavalry!" "We are firing at the people who are 
 
Five Forks 133 
 
 firing at us!" is the quick reply. "These are not 
 carbine shot. They are minie-balls. I ought to 
 know." 
 
 But I felt the point of Sheridan's rebuke. As 
 my oblique fire across the "rettirn" was now so 
 near the enemy's main line on the White Oak Road, 
 it was not unlikely that if any of the cavalry were 
 up here on their front, I might be firing into them 
 and they into me. There was a worse thing yet: 
 if we continued advancing in that direction, in 
 another minute we should be catching Ayres' 
 fire on owr left flank. He was already in, with his 
 men. Griffin, coming up, detains me a moment. 
 Sheridan greets him well. "We flanked them 
 gloriously!" he exclaims, with a full-charged smile, 
 implying that all was not over yet. After a 
 minute's crisp remark, Griffin wheels away to the 
 right, and I am left with Sheridan. He was sitting 
 right in the focus of the fire, on his horse "Rienzi, " 
 — ^both about the color of the atmosphere, his 
 demon pennon, good or ill, as it might bode, red 
 and white, two-starred, aloft just behind him. 
 The stream of bullets was pouring so thick it 
 crossed my mind that what had been to me a poet's 
 phrase — "darkening the air" — was founded on 
 dead-level fact. I was troubled for Sheridan. 
 We could not afford to lose him. I made bold to 
 tell him so, and begged him not to stay there; — 
 the rest of us would try to take care of things, 
 and from that place he could be spared. He gave 
 me a comical look, and answered with a peculiar 
 twist in the toss of his head, that seemed to say he 
 
134 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 didn't care much for himself, or perhaps for me. 
 "Yes, I think I'll go!" and away he dashed, right 
 down through Ayres' left, down the White Oak 
 Road, into that triple cross-fire we had been 
 quarreling about. I afterwards learned that 
 Sheridan did order his cavalry to cease firing in 
 the direction of our advancing infantry. 
 
 I plunged into my business, to make up for this 
 minute's lost time. My men were still facing too 
 much across Ayres' front, and getting into the 
 range of his fire. We had got to change that, 
 and swing to the right, down the rear of the 
 enemy's main works. It was a whirl. Every way 
 was front, and every way was flank. The fighting 
 was hand to hand. I was trying to get the three 
 angles of the triangle into something like two right • 
 angles, and had swung my left well forward, open- 
 ing quite a gap in that direction, when a large body 
 of the enemy came rushing in upon that flank and 
 rear. They were in line formation, with arms at 
 something like a "ready," which looked like 
 "business." I thought it was our turn to be 
 caught between two fires, and that these men were 
 likely to cut their way through us. Rushing into 
 the ranks of my left battalion I shouted the order, 
 "Prepare to fire by the rear rank!" My men 
 faced about at once, disregarding the enemy in 
 front; but at this juncture our portentous visitors 
 threw down their muskets, and with hands and 
 faces up cried out, "We surrender," running right 
 in upon us and almost over us. I was very glad 
 of it, though more astonished, for they outnum- 
 
Five Forks 135 
 
 bered us largely.' I was a little afraid of them, 
 too, lest they might find occasion to take arms 
 again and revoke the "consent of the governed." 
 They were pretty sohd commodities, but I was 
 very willing to exchange them for paper token of 
 indebtedness in the form of a provost-marshal's 
 receipt. So getting my own line into shape again, 
 I took these weU-mannered men, who had been 
 standing us so stiff a fight a few minutes before, 
 with a small escort out over the "return, " into the 
 open field in rear, and tiirned them over to one of 
 Sheridan's staff, with a request for a receipt when 
 they were counted."* 
 
 In the field I find Ayres, who is turning over a 
 great lot of prisoners. The "angle" and the 
 whole "return" are now carried, but beyond them 
 the routed enemy are stubbornly resisting. I have 
 time for a word with Ayres now, and to explain my 
 taking up Gwyn so sharply. He is not in the mood 
 to blame me for anything. He explains also. 
 He had been suddenly attacked on his left, and 
 
 ' These were Colonel Hutter of the nth Virginia Infantry of Mayo's 
 Brigade and part of the 3d Virginia Cavalry dismounted which Mun- 
 ford had sent to reinforce Ransom. 
 
 ' The receipt sent me bore the whole number of prisoners turned over 
 by me during the battle; but most of them were taken in this encounter. 
 This acknowledges from my command two colonels, six captains, eleven 
 lieutenants, and a thousand and fifty men sent in by my own brigade; 
 and four hundred and seventy men by Gregory's. It is not impossible 
 that some of these prisoners turned over to General Sheridan's provost 
 marshal, may have been counted twice, — with the cavalry captures as 
 well as my own. It should be said that the prisoners taken by us were 
 due to the efficiency and admirable behavior of all the troops in our part 
 of the field near the "angle," and not alone to that of my immediate 
 command. 
 
136 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 had been obliged to change front instantly with 
 two of his brigades. Their two commanders, 
 Winthrop and Bowerman, falling almost at the 
 first stroke, he had taken these brigades in person, 
 and put them in, without sending any word to 
 Gwyn on his right. I could see how it was. 
 Losing connection, Gwyn was at a loss what to 
 do, and in the brief time Ayres was routing the 
 enemy who had attacked him, I had come upon 
 Gwyn and had put him in, really ahead of the 
 main line of Ayres, who soon came up to him. So 
 it all came about right for Ayres. ^ 
 
 General Bartlett now came appealing for assist- 
 ance. Two of his regiments had gone ofE with 
 Crawford, and Bartlett had more than he could do 
 to make head against a stout resistance the enemy 
 were making on a second line turned back near the 
 Ford Road. I helped him pick up a lot of strag- 
 glers and asked Gregory to give him the i88th 
 New York for assistance. 
 
 Meanwhile Warren, searching for Crawford, 
 had come upon his First Brigade, Kellogg's, and 
 had faced it southerly towards the White Oak 
 
 ' To complete this reference, I will mention that Brevet Brigadier- 
 General Gwyn was colonel of the ii8th Pennsylvania Volunteers, in 
 Griffin's Division, and had been assigned to command one of Ayres' 
 Brigades. Not long afterwards I came in command of the division, and, 
 a general court-martial being convened, charges were preferred against 
 Gwyn by some who did not understand the facts of this occurrence as 
 well as I did. When the papers reached me, I disapproved them and 
 sent them back with the endorsement that General Gwyn had done his 
 best under peculiarly perplexing circumstances, and had gone in with 
 his brigade handsomely, under my own eye at a critical moment of the 
 battle. I believed this to be justice to a brave officer. 
 
Five Forks 137 
 
 Road, as a guide for a new point of direction for 
 that division, and had then gone off in search of 
 the rest of these troops to bring them in on the 
 line. Thereupon one of Sheridan's staff officers 
 came across Kellogg standing there, and naturally 
 ordered him to go forward into the "fight." 
 KeUogg questioned his authority, and warm words 
 took the place of other action, till at length Kellogg 
 concluded it best to obey Sheridan's representative, 
 and moved promptly forward, striking somewhere 
 beyond the left of the enemy's refused new flank. 
 It seems also that Crawford's Third Brigade, 
 Coulter's, which was in his rear line, had antici- 
 pated orders or got Warren's, and moved by the 
 shortest line in the direction Kellogg was taking. 
 So Crawford himself was on the extreme wheeling 
 flank, with only Baxter's Brigade and two regi- 
 ments of Bartlett's of the First Division immedi- 
 ately in hand. His brigades were now moving in 
 echelon by the left, which was in fact about the 
 order of movement originally prescribed, and that 
 which the whole corps actually took up, auto- 
 matically as it were, or by force of the situation. 
 Our commands were queerly mixed; men of every 
 division of the corps came within my jurisdiction, 
 and something like this was probably the case 
 with several other commanders. But that made 
 no difference; men and officers were good friends. 
 There was no jealousy among us subordinate 
 commanders. We had eaten salt together when 
 we had not much else. This liveliness of mutual 
 interest and support, I may remark, is sometimes 
 
138 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 of great importance in the developments of a 
 battle. 
 
 The hardest hold-up was in front of my left 
 center, the First Battalion of the 198th Pennsyl- 
 vania. I rode up to the gallant Glenn, command- 
 ing it, and said, "Major Glenn, if you will break 
 that line you shall have a colonel's commission!" 
 It was a hasty utterance, and the promise un- 
 military, perhaps; but my every energy was 
 focused on that moment's issue. Nor did the 
 earnest soldier need a personal inducement; he 
 was already carryitig out the general order to press 
 the enemy before him, with as much effect as we 
 could reasonably expect. But it was deep in my 
 mind how richly he already deserved this promo- 
 tion, and I resolved that he should get it now. It 
 was this thought and purpose which no doubt 
 shaped my phrase, and pardoned it. Glenn 
 sprung among his men, calling out, "Boys, will you 
 follow me? " wheeled his horse and dashed forward, 
 without turning to see who followed. Nor did 
 he need. His words were a question; his act an 
 order. On the brave fellows go with a cheer into 
 the hurricane of fire. Their beautiful flag sways 
 gracefully aloft with the spring of the brave youth 
 bearing it, lighting the battle-smoke; three times 
 it goes down to earth covered in darkening eddies, 
 but rises ever again passing from hand to hand 
 of dauntless young heroes. Then buUet-tom and 
 blood-blazoned it hovers for a moment above a 
 breastwork, while the regiment goes over like a 
 wave. This I saw from my position to the left of 
 
Five Forks 139 
 
 them where I was pressing on the rest of my com- 
 mand. The sight so wrought upon me that I 
 snatched time to ride over and congratulate Glenn 
 and his r,egiment. As I passed into a deeper 
 shadow of the woods, I met two men bearing his 
 body, the dripping blood marking their path. 
 They stopped to tell me. I saw it all too well. 
 He had snatched a battle flag from a broken regi- 
 ment trying to rally on its colors, when a brute 
 btillet of the earth once pronounced good, but 
 since cursed for man's sin, struck him down to its 
 level. I could stop but a moment, for still on my 
 front was rush and turmoil and tragedy. I could 
 only bend down over him from the saddle and 
 murmur unavailing words. "General, I have 
 carried out your wishes!" — this was his only 
 utterance. It was as if another bullet had cut me 
 through. I almost fell across my saddle-bow. 
 My wish? God in heaven, no more my wish than 
 thine, that this fair body, still part of the unfallen 
 "good," should be smitten to the sod, that this 
 spirit born of thine shovild be quenched by the 
 accursed ! 
 
 What dark misgivings searched me as I took the 
 import of these words! What sharp sense of 
 responsibility for those who have committed to 
 them the issues of life and death ! Why should I 
 not have let this onset take its general course and 
 men their natural chances? Why choose out him 
 for his death, and so take on myself the awful 
 decision into what home irreparable loss and 
 measureless desolation should cast their unlifted 
 
140 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 btirden? The crowding thought choked utterance. 
 I could only bend my face low to his and answer: 
 "Colonel, I will remember my promise; I will 
 remember youl" and press forward to my place, 
 where the crash and crush and agony of struggle 
 summoned me to more of the same. War! — 
 nothing but the final, infinite good, for man and 
 God, can accept and justify human work Uke 
 that! 
 
 I feared most of all, I well remember, — such 
 hold had this voice on me, — that it might not be 
 given me to be found among the living, so that I 
 could fulfill my word to him. But divine grace and 
 pity granted me this. As soon as the battle was 
 over, I sent forward by special messenger my 
 recommendation for two brevets for him, in 
 recognition of his conspicuous gallantry and great 
 service in every battle of this campaign, up to 
 this last hour. These were granted at once, and 
 Glenn passed from us to other recognition, "Brevet 
 Colonel of United States Volunteers," — and that 
 phrase, so costly won, so honorable then, made 
 common since, has seemed to me ever after, tame 
 and something like travesty.' 
 
 ' I sought for him from the Governor of Pennsylvania lineal promo- 
 tion in his regiment, though he had but few hours to live. But that 
 grade was held by an accomphshed gentleman detached from his regi- 
 ment on ofBce duties in the cities, and there was no place for Glenn. 
 The colonel, dear old Sickel, was in hospital with an amputated arm, 
 shattered at the Quaker Road three days before. Within that time this 
 regiment had now lost in battle colonel, major, and adjutant, and all we 
 could secure for the rest of the service, that great regiment of fourteen 
 companies, was a major's rank. This, indeed, was worthily bestowed. 
 It came to Captain'John Stanton, who after the fall of Sickel and MacEuen 
 
Five Forks 141 
 
 By this time Warren had found Crawford, who 
 with Baxter's Brigade had been pursuing Mun- 
 ford's dismounted cavahry all the way from where 
 we had crossed the White Oak Road, by a wide 
 detotir reaching almost to Hatcher's Run, until he 
 had crossed the Ford Road, quite in rear of the 
 breaking lines which Ransom and Wallace and 
 Wood were trying to hold together.' Hence he 
 was in position to do them much damage, both by 
 cutting off their retreat by the Ford Road and 
 taking many prisoners, and also by completing 
 the enemy's envelopment. To meet this, the 
 enemy, instead of giving up the battle as they 
 would have been justified in doing, stripped still 
 more their main works in front of otir cavalry by 
 detaching nearly the entire brigade of General 
 Terry, now commanded by Colonel Mayo, and 
 facing it quite to its rear pushed it down the Ford 
 Road and across the fields to resist the advance of 
 Warren with Crawford. 
 
 We, too, were pressing hard on the Ford Road 
 from the east, so that all were crowded into that 
 whirlpool of the fight. Just as I reached it, 
 Captain Brinton of Griffin's staff dashed up at 
 
 had acted as a field officer with fidelity and honor, and had distinguished 
 himself in the struggle for the flag snatched by Glenn with more than 
 mortal energy and at mortal cost. 
 
 ' To my grief over the costs of this struggle was added now another, 
 when, borne past me on the right, came the form of Colonel Pamham of 
 the 1 6th Maine, now on Crawford's staff, who, sent to bear an order 
 into this thickening whirl, was shot through the breast and fell, as we 
 thought, mortally wounded, but the courage and fortitude which never 
 forsook him carried him through this also. 
 
142 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 headlong speed and asked if I knew' that Griffin 
 was in command of the corps. I was astonished 
 at first, and incredulous afterwards. I had heard 
 nothing from General Warren since I saw his flag 
 away in the Sydnor field when I was breaking out 
 from the column of march to go to Ayres' support. 
 My first thought was that he was killed. I asked 
 Brinton what he meant. He told me the story. 
 General Warren, when he got to the rear of the Ford 
 Road, sent an enthusiastic message by Colonel 
 Locke, his chief of staff, to Sheridan, saying that 
 he was in the enemy's rear, cutting off his retreat, 
 and had many prisoners. This message met scant 
 courtesy. Sheridan's patience was exhaustedi 
 " By G — , sir, tell General Warren he wasn't in the 
 fight ! ' ' Colonel Locke was thunderstruck. ' ' Must 
 I tell General Warren that, sir?" asked he. "Tell 
 him that, sir! " came back, the words like hammer- 
 blows. ' ' I would not like to take a verbal message 
 like that to General Warren. May I take it down 
 in writing?" — "Take it down, sir; tell him, by 
 G — , he was not at the front!" This was done. 
 Locke, the old and only adjutant-general of the 
 Fifth Corps, himself just back from a severe wound 
 in the face on some desperate front with Warren, 
 never felt a blow like that. Soon thereafter Sheri- 
 dan came upon General Griffin, and, without pre- 
 face or index, told the astonished Griffin, "I put 
 you in command of the Fifth Corps!" This was 
 Brinton's story/ dramatic enough, surely; pathetic 
 too. I hardly knew how to take it. I thought 
 it possible Sheridan had told every general officer 
 
Five Forks 143 
 
 he met, as he had told me, to take command of all 
 the men he could find on the field and push them 
 in. I could not think of Warren being so wide-off 
 an exception. 
 
 Pressing down towards the Forks, some of 
 Ayres' men mingled with my own, I saw on emerg- 
 ing into a little clearing, Sheridan riding beside 
 me Hke an apparition. Yet he was pretty certain 
 flesh and blood. I felt a little nervous, not in the 
 region of my conscience, nor with any misgiving 
 of the day's business, but because I was alone with 
 Sheridan. His expression was at its utmost bent; 
 intent and content, incarnate will. But he greeted 
 me kindly, and spoke freely of the way things had 
 been going. We were riding down inside the 
 works in the woods covering the Forks and Ford 
 Road, now the new focus of the fight. Just then 
 an officer rode flightily up from that direction, 
 exclaiming to General Sheridan, "We are on the 
 enemy's rear, and have got three of their guns." 
 " I don't care a d — for their guns, or you either, sir! 
 What are you here for? Go back to your business, 
 where you belong! What I want is that Southside 
 Road." The officer seemed to appreciate the force 
 of the suggestion, and the distant attraction of the 
 Southside Road. I looked to see what would 
 happen to me. There were many men gathered 
 rotmd, or rather we had ridden into the midst of 
 them, as they stood amazed, at the episode. The 
 Sim was just in the tree-tops ; it might be the evening 
 chill that was creeping over us. Then Sheridan, 
 rising in his stirrups, hat in hand waving aloft 
 
144 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 at full arm's length, face black as his horse, and 
 both like a storm-king, roared out: "I want you 
 men to understand we have a record to make, 
 before that sun goes down, that will make heU 
 tremble! — I want you there!" I guess they were 
 ready to go; to that place or any other where death 
 would find them quickest; and the sooner they got 
 there, the safer for them. 
 
 Griffin came down now from the right, dashed 
 ahead of me and jumped his'horse over the works. 
 I thought myself a pretty good rider, but preferred 
 a lower place in the breastworks. My horse saw 
 one and made for it. Just as he neared the leap, 
 a bullet struck him in the leg, and gave him more 
 impetus than I had counted on. But I gave him 
 free rein and held myself easy, and over we went, 
 and down we came, luckily feet-foremost, almost 
 on top of one of the enemy's guns, which we were 
 fortunate enough not to "take." In truth the 
 gun was so hot from its rapid recent fire that we 
 could not bear our hands on it. 
 
 There was a queer "parliament of religions" 
 just then and there, at this Five Forks focus. And 
 it came in this wise. As Ransom ,and Wallace 
 and Wood's reinforced but wasting lines had fallen 
 back before us along the north and east side of their 
 works, otir cavalry kept up sharp attacks upon 
 their right across the works, which by masterly 
 courage and skill they managed to repel, replacing 
 as best they could the great gaps made in their 
 defenses by the withdrawal of so many of Stewart's 
 and Terry's Brigades, to form the other sides of 
 
Five Forks 145 
 
 their retreating "hollow square. " Driven in upon 
 themselves, and over much "concentrated," they 
 were so penned in there was not a fair chance to 
 fight. Just as Ayres' and GrijSin's men struck the 
 brave fellows holding on around the guns at the 
 Forks, from which Pegram, the gifted young com- 
 mander, had been borne away mortally wounded, — 
 and spirits as well as bodies were falling, — two 
 brigades of otir cavalry, Fitzhugh's and Penning- 
 ton's of Devins' and Custer's commands, seizing 
 the favorable moment, made a splendid dash, dis- 
 mounted, over the works in their front, passing 
 the guns and joining with our men in pressing back 
 the broken ranks scattering through the thick 
 woods. Bartlett, also, with some of Crawford's 
 men following, came down nearly at the same time 
 from the north on the Ford Road. All, therefore, 
 centered on the three giins there; so that for a 
 moment there was a queer colloquy over the silent 
 gims. The cavalry officers say that they captured 
 the guns, but Griffin would not let them "take" 
 them. Crawford and Bartlett afterwards also 
 both report the capture of the gims; but as the 
 enemy had abandoned them before these troops 
 struck them, the claimants of the capture should 
 be content to rank their merits in the order of their 
 coming. There were, however, some guns farther 
 up the Ford Road,^-whether those at first under 
 Ransom on the "refused" flank, or those htirried 
 from Pegram's command on the White Oak Road 
 to the support of the breaking lines vainly essaying 
 to cover the Ford Road. Of the capture of these 
 
146 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 there is no doubt. These Major West Funk — a 
 strange misnomer, but a better name in German 
 than in English, showing there is some "sparkle" 
 in his blood — actually "took," by personal touch, 
 — ^both ways. First dodging behind trees before 
 their canister, then shooting down the horses and 
 mtdes attached to the limbers, as well as the 
 gunners who stood by them, his two little regiments 
 made a rush for the battery, overwhelmed it, 
 unmanned it, and then swept on, leaving the guns 
 behind them, making no fuss about it, and so very 
 likely to get no credit for it. This little episode, 
 however, was not unobserved by me; for this 
 resolute young commander had been a member of 
 my personal staff, and these two regiments — ^the 
 I2ist and I42d Pennsylvania, now attached to 
 Crawford's Division, were all that was left to us of 
 the dear lost old First Corps, and of my splendid 
 brigade from it in Griffin's Division, in the ever 
 memorable charge of "Fort Hell," June 18, 1864. 
 
 "Taking guns" is a phrase associated with very 
 stirring action. But words have a greater range 
 than even guns. There is the literal, the legal, 
 the'moral, the figurative, the poetic, the florid, the 
 transcendental. All these atmospheres may give 
 meaning and color to a word. But dealing with 
 solid fact, there is no more picturesque and thrilling 
 sight, no more telling, testing deed, than to "take 
 a battery" in front. Plowed through by boom- 
 ing shot; torn by ragged bursts of shell; riddled by 
 blasts of whistling canister; straight ahead to the 
 guns hidden in their own smoke; straight on to the 
 
Five Forks 147 
 
 red, scorching flame of the muzzles, the giant 
 grains of cannon-powder beating, burning, sizzling 
 into the cheek; then in upon them! — ^pistol to 
 rifle-shot, saber to bayonet, musket-butt to hand- 
 spike and rammer; the brief frenzy of passion; 
 the wild "hurrah!" then the sudden, unearthly 
 silence; the ghastly scene; the shadow of death; 
 the attreole of glory; much that is telling here, 
 but more that cannot be told. Surely it were much 
 better if guns must be taken, to take them by flank 
 attack, by skillful manoeuvre, by moral suasion, 
 by figtire of speech, or even by proxy. 
 
 But this is digression, or reminiscence. For the 
 matter in hand, the guns taken at the Forks and 
 on the Ford Road, with due acknowledgments of 
 individual valor, were taken by all the troops who 
 closed in around them, front, flank, and rear; 
 by the whole movement, indeed, from the brain 
 of the brilliant commander who planned, to the 
 least man who pressed forward to fulfill his high 
 resolve. 
 
 We had pushed the enemy a mile from the left 
 of their works — the angle, their tactical center — 
 and were now past the Forks. Something re- 
 mained to be done, according to Sheridan's 
 biblical intimation. But the enemy made no more 
 resolute, general stand. Only little groups, held 
 back and held together by individual character, 
 or the magnetism of some superior officer, made 
 front and gave check. For a moment, after the 
 deafening din and roar, the woods seemed almost 
 given back to nature, save for the clinging smoke 
 
148 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 and broken bodies and breaking moans which 
 betokened man's intervention. 
 
 Our commands were much mixed, but the men 
 well moving on, when in this slackening of the 
 strain. Griffin and Ayres, who were now riding with 
 me, spoke regretfully, sympathizingly, of Warren. 
 They thought he had sacrificed himself for Craw- 
 ford, who had not proved equal to the demands of 
 the situation. "Poor Warren, how he will suffer 
 for this!" they said with many variations of the 
 theme. Griffin did not say a word about his be- 
 ing placed in command of the corps. He was a 
 keen observer, a sharp critic, able and prompt to 
 use a tactical advantage, but he was not the man 
 to take pleasure which cost another's pain, or 
 profit from another's loss. It was high promotion, 
 gratifying to a soldier's ambition; it was special 
 preferment, for he was junior to Crawford. But 
 he took it all modestly, like the soldier and man 
 he was, thinking more of duty and service than of 
 self. 
 
 Sheridan came upon us again, bent to his pur- 
 pose. ' ' Get together all the men you can, ' ' he says, 
 "and drive on while you can see your hand before 
 you!" The men were widely scattered from their 
 proper commanders. Griffin told me to gather the 
 men of the First Division and bring them to the 
 White Oak Road. Riding along the ground of 
 the wide pursuit, I kept my bugler sounding the 
 brigade calls of the division. This brought our 
 officers and men to the left. Among others, Gen- 
 eral Warren came riding slowly fronl the right. I 
 
Five Forks 149 
 
 took pains to greet him cheerfully, and. explained 
 to him why I was sounding all the bugle calls. 
 "You are doing just right, " he replies, "but I am 
 not in command of the corps. " That was the first 
 authoritative word I had heard spoken to this 
 effect. I told him I had heard so, but that General 
 Sheridan had been putting us all in command of 
 ever3^hing we could get in hand, and perhaps after 
 the battle was over we would all get back where we 
 belonged. I told him I was now moving forward 
 under Sheridan's and Griffin's order, and rode 
 away from him towards the left with my gathered 
 troops, shadowed in spirit for Warren's sake. I 
 cotild not be sorry for the corps, nor that Griffin 
 was in command of it — he had the confidence of the 
 whole corps. And however sharp was Griffin's 
 satire, he had the generosity which enables one to 
 be truly just, and never made his subordinates 
 vicarious victims of his own interior irritations. 
 
 We had now come to the edge of a wide field 
 across the road and the works on the enemy's 
 right, known as the Gilliam field. Here I came to 
 Sheridan and Griffin, my troops all up, and well in 
 hand. A sharp cavalry fight was going on, in 
 which some of Ayres' men and my own had taken 
 part. On the right, along the White Oak Road, 
 were portions of Crawford's infantry that had 
 swung around so quickly as to get ahead of us and 
 they were the ones now principally engaged. 
 
 Here Warren took his leave of the corps, himself 
 under a shadow as somber as the scene and with a 
 flash as lurid as the red light of the battle-edge 
 
150 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 rolling away into the darkness and distance of the 
 deep woods. When oiir line was checked at this 
 last angle, Griffin had ordered one of Crawford's 
 colonels to advance. The colonel, a brave and 
 well-balanced man, replied that where soldiers as 
 good as Griffin's men had failed, he did not feel 
 warranted in going in without proper orders. , ' ' Very 
 well I order you in!" says Griffin, without adding 
 that he did it as commander of the corps. The 
 gallant colonel bows, — ^it is Richardson, of the 
 7th Wisconsin, — grasps his regimental colors in 
 his own hand, significant of the need and his resolu- 
 tion in face of it, and rides forward in advance of 
 his men. What can they do but follow such ex- 
 ample? General Warren, with intensity of feeling 
 that is now desperation, snatches his corps flag 
 from the hands of its bearer, and dashes to Rich- 
 ardson's side. And so the two leaders ride, the 
 corps commander and his last visible colonel, — 
 colors aloft, reckless of the growing distance be- 
 tween them and their followers, straight for the 
 smoking line, straight for the flaming edge; not 
 hesitating at the breastworks, over they go: one 
 with swelling tumult of soul, where the passion of 
 suffering craves outburst in action; the other with 
 obedience and self-devotion, love-like, stronger 
 than death. Over the breastworks, down among 
 the astonished foe, one of whom, instinct over- 
 mastering admiration, aims at the foremost a 
 deadly blow, which the noble youth rushes forward 
 to parry, and shielding with his own the breast of 
 his uncaring commander, falls to earth, bathing his 
 
Five Forks 151 
 
 colors with his blood. Need more be told? Do 
 men tarry at such a point? One crested wave 
 sweeps on; another, broken, rolls away. All is 
 lost; and all is won. Slowly Warren returns over 
 the somber field. At its forsaken edge a staff 
 officer hands him a crude field order. Partly by 
 the lurid flashes of the last guns, partly by hght of 
 the dying day, he reads: "Major-General Warren, 
 commanding the Fifth Army Corps, is relieved 
 from duty and will at once report for orders to 
 Lieutenant-General Grant, commanding Armies 
 of the United States. By command of Major- 
 General Sheridan. " 
 
 With almost the agony of death upon his face, 
 Warren approaches Sheridan and asks him if he 
 cannot reconsider the order. "Reconsider. Hell! 
 I don't reconsider my decisions. Obey the order! " 
 fell the last thunderbolt on Warren's heart. 
 
 The battle has done its worst for him. The iron 
 has entered his soul. With bowed head and with- 
 out a word, he turns from the spectral groups of 
 friend and foe mingled in the dark, forbidding 
 cloud of night, to report to the one man on earth 
 who held power over what to him was dearer than 
 life, and takes his lonely way over that eventful 
 field, along that fateful White Oak Road, which for 
 him had no end on earth. 
 
 After nightfall the corps -was drawn in around 
 Five Forks, for a brief respite. We were all so 
 worn out that our sinking bodies took our spirits 
 with them. We had reasons to rejoice so far as 
 victory gives reasons; but there was a strange 
 
152 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 weight on the hearts of us all. Of things within? 
 or things without? We could not tell. It was not 
 wholly because Warren had gone, although in the 
 svindering of old ties there is always a strain, and 
 Warren had been part of the best history of the 
 Fifth Corps from the beginning. Even victory is 
 not for itself; it looks to a cause and an end. We 
 thought of this, pondering on the worth and cost, 
 and to what that end might tinfold, of which this 
 was the beginning. There are other emotions, too, 
 which will arise when night draws over a scene 
 like that, and with it the thoughts come home. 
 
 We grouped ourselves around GrifSn at the 
 Forks, center of the whirling struggle, we who 
 were left of those once accustomed to gather about 
 him in field or bivouac, — alas for those who came 
 no more! — ^half-rechning against the gloomy tree- 
 trunks and rudely piled defenses so gallantly lost 
 and won, torn by splintering shot and rush of men; 
 half -stretched on the ground moistened by the dews 
 of night and the blood of the mingled brave; 
 hushed at heart, speaking but in murmtirs answer- 
 ing to the whispers of the night ; with a tremtilous 
 sensitiveness, an awe that was not fear. Few 
 things we said; but they were not of the history 
 that is told. 
 
 Suddenly emerged from the shadows a compact 
 form, with vigorous stride unlike the measure and 
 mood of ours and a voice that would itself have 
 thrilled us had not the import of it thrilled us more. 
 "Gentlemen," says Sheridan, as we half started 
 to our feet, "I have come over to see you. I may 
 
Five Forks 153 
 
 have spoken harshly to some of you to-day; but 
 I would not have it hurt you. You know how it is : 
 we had to carry this place, and I was fretted all 
 day till it was done. You must forgive me. I 
 know it is hard for the men, too ; but we must push. 
 There is more for us to do together. I appreciate 
 and thank you all. " 
 
 And this is Phil Sheridan! A new view of him, 
 surely, and amazing. All the repressed feeling of 
 ova hearts sprang out towards him. We were 
 ready to blame otirselves if we had been in any way 
 the cause of his trouble. But we thought we had 
 borne a better part than that. 
 
 We had had a taste of his style of fighting, and 
 we liked it. In some respects it was difiEerent from 
 otirs; although this was not a case to test all 
 qualities. We had formed some habits of fighting 
 too. Most of us there had been through Antietam, 
 Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Mine 
 Run, the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, 
 Bethesda Church, the North Anna, Petersburg: — 
 we had formed habits. We went into a fight with 
 knowledge of what it meant and what was to be 
 done. We went at things with dogged resolution; 
 not much show; not much flare; not much accom- 
 paniment of brass instruments. But we could 
 give credit to more brilliant things. We could see 
 how this voice and vision, this swing and color, this 
 vivid impression on the senses, carried the pulse 
 and will of men. This served as the old "fife and 
 drum," and "Hail Columbia," that used to stir 
 men's souls. We had a habit, perhaps, drawn 
 
154 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 from dire experience, and for which we had also 
 Grant's quite recent sanction/ when we had carried 
 a vital point or had to hold one, to entrench. But 
 Sheridan does not entrench. He pushes on, carry- 
 ing his flank and rear with him, — ^rushing, flashing, 
 smashing. He transfuses into his subordinates 
 the vitality and energy of his purpose; transforms 
 them into part of his own mind and will. He 
 shows the power of a commander, — ^inspiring both 
 confidence and fear. He commanded otir admir- 
 ation, but we could discriminate: we reserved 
 room for question whether he exhibited aU the 
 qualities essential to a chief commander in a cam- 
 paign, or even in the complicated movements of an 
 extensive field of battle. 
 
 As a rule, our corps and army commanders were 
 men of brains rather than of magnetism. Warren 
 was one of these. He was weU capable of organ- 
 izing an entire plan of battle on a great field. He 
 would have been an admirable chief of staff of the 
 army, where brains outweigh temperament. He 
 could see the whole comprehensively and adjust 
 the parts subordinate to it. But he had a certain 
 ardor of temperament which, although it brought 
 him distinction as a subordinate commander, 
 seemed to work against him as corps commander. 
 It led him to go in personally with a single division 
 or brigade, when a sharp fight came on. Doing 
 this when having a larger command, one takes the 
 risk of losing grasp of the whole. That was what 
 
 » The order to entrench on the White Oak Road, March 31st. See 
 War Papers, vol. i., p. 235. 
 
Five Forks 155 
 
 he did in trying to change front with Crawford's 
 Division under fire. It was a difficult thing. He 
 put his personality into it ; just as Sheridan would 
 do and did in this very fight. It was the crudest 
 thing to say of hini that he "was not in the fight. " 
 This blamied him for the very opposite of what had 
 been complained of as his chief fault ; and this time 
 the accusation was not true. He was in the fight; 
 and that in fact was his fault; at any rate it was 
 his evil fate. That he felt this accusation keenly 
 was manifest in that last reckless onset in the 
 charge in the Gilliam field: he would let Sheridan 
 see whether he was in the fight or not. But this 
 did no good. If he had brought Crawford in 
 where Griffin came, he might have saved himself. 
 But that long labor of his out of Sheridan's sight 
 missed the moment. It was too late. The day 
 was done. So he rode through into the night. 
 
 In the later dispositions of the corps the several 
 divisions were moved out in directions which would 
 best guard against sudden attack, not unexpected: 
 Crawford, down the Ford Road, half-way to the 
 Run; Ayres out the White Oak Road on the right, 
 and Bartlett on the left, facing towards the enemy, 
 supposed to be gathered in their last stronghold 
 where we had left their main body the day before, — 
 the Claiborne entrenchments. It fell to me to be 
 held in reserve, and by midnight my command was 
 left alone on the field over which the sweeping 
 vision of power had passed. The thunder and 
 tumult of the day had died with it. Now only 
 the sighing of the night winds through the pine 
 
156 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 tops took up the ghostly refrain; and moans from 
 the darkened earth beneath told where we also 
 belonged. So the night was not for sleep, but 
 given to, solemn and tender duties, and to thoughts 
 that passed beyond that field. 
 
 This is the story of Five Forks within my knowl- 
 edge of what was done and sttffered there. It 
 shows confusions and struggles besides those of the 
 contending lines. It shows extent and complexity 
 quite beyond what wovild appear from an outside 
 view of the movement or the orders concerning it. 
 The story that went out early, and has taken lodg- 
 ment in the public mind, is more simple. Taking 
 its rise and keynote from Sheridan's report, some- 
 what intensified by his staff officers, and adopted 
 by Grant without feeling necessity of further 
 investigation, this story is that Sheridan and 
 his cavalry, with the assistance of a part of Ayres' 
 Division, carried Five Forks with all its works, 
 angles, and returns, its captives, guns, and glory. 
 
 The widely drawn and all-embracing testimony 
 before the Warren Court of Inquiry in 1879 and 
 1880, although in some instances confused and 
 even contradictory, — the result, however, in no 
 small degree of the preoccupation in the witnesses' 
 minds by the accounts so early and abundantly 
 put forth, and without rectification for so long a 
 time, — ^yet reveals some spreading of the plan of 
 battle, a steadfast, well-connected, and well-exe- 
 cuted conformity to the ideas under which the battle 
 was ordered. It also affords ample means of un- 
 
Five Forks 157 
 
 derstanding the confusions and frictions which 
 were actual passages in the battle, and not artificial 
 and intensified in statement under the necessity of 
 sustaining a thesis or vindicating an act of authority. 
 The light shed by these records and the official War 
 Records lately published enables us now, by some 
 effort of attention it is true, to see in proper per- 
 spective, sequence, and comprehension the complex 
 details of that battle. 
 
 There was some very remarkable testimony 
 before the court in regard to the fight at Dinwiddle, 
 resulting from anything but "infirmity of mind." 
 There were also many inconsistencies concerning 
 the fight at Five Forks. But all these must be 
 accepted as a part of htiman conditions." 
 
 The whole trouble and the disturbance of Sheri- 
 dan's preconceived image of the battle arose from 
 a wide mistinderstanding of the enemy's position, 
 and the consequent direction of the attack by the 
 Fifth Corps. The general plan was well under- 
 stood by us all, and the specific written orders were 
 in perfect accordance with the idea in our minds. 
 It was to be mainly a flank and rear attack, — a, 
 cyclone sweep. The intention evidently was that 
 
 " See, for instance, Sheridan's statement before the Warren Court, 
 Records, p. ii8, and those of his oflScers all through this investigation. 
 Also Grant's account of this battle, Memoirs, vol. ii., pp. 443-446, the 
 details of which, however, are so erroneous as to movements, their time 
 and place and bearing on the result, that they would not be recognized 
 as pertaining to that battle by anyone who was there; — an observation 
 which adds to our sorrow at the distressing circumstances under which 
 the distinguished writer was compelled to conclude his last volume 
 without opportunity for ejcamining the then existing evidence in that 
 case. 
 
158 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 our cavalry should engage the enemy's attention 
 by vigorous demonstrations on their right and 
 center, while the left of the Fifth Corps — ^Ayres' 
 Division — should strike the left of the enemy's 
 entrenched line at the angle or return on the White 
 Oak Road, and on this pivot the whole corps should 
 make a great left turn and flank and envelop the 
 enemy's entire position.' It was a brilliant piece of 
 tactics, and if properly carried out its success was 
 as certainly predicted as anything in warfare can 
 be. There was no lack of loyalty and earnestness. 
 The importance of the battle was felt, and Sheri- 
 dan's impatience shared by all. 
 
 But our actual movement was based on an 
 imperfect reconnoissance, and a diagram made 
 therefrom greatly misled us. This showed Craw- 
 ford, the extreme right of the corps, directed on 
 the angle, instead of Ayres, the extreme left. 
 By this, not a man of the Fifth Corps could reach 
 the White Oak Road without doing so on top of the 
 enemy entrenched upon it. Swinging to the left 
 on reaching it would have to be done inside the 
 enemy's lines, or in front of them at close touch, 
 presenting the right of each subdivision to their 
 raking fire. 
 
 The diagram placed the angle of the enemy's 
 works at the crossing of the White Oak Road and 
 the road we were formed on, — ^the Gravelly Run 
 Church Road; while as matter of fact, the angle 
 was one thousand yards west of this crossing. 
 So that "the line as formed" moving forward, 
 
 ' See map. 
 
Five Forks 159 
 
 instead of its right striking the angle, as the dia- 
 gram indicated, the left of the line wotild pass it at 
 the distance of nearly five hundred yards, as Ayres 
 did. 
 
 It is now perfectly shown, although not clearly 
 held in mind by all, even at the Warren investiga- 
 tion, that the celebrated "angle" and "retiirn" 
 were not the extreme left of the enemy's lines, nor 
 of his fortified position, as woiild appear by the 
 diagram. East of the angle as given there, was an 
 extended work of similar character, but across the 
 White Oak Road — south of it — extending a hun- 
 dred and fifty yards, facing south. This seems to 
 have been intended to cover the "return" which 
 ran north from its right for some two hundred 
 yards. This was the vicinity of the veritable " an- 
 gle" where the severe fight took place when our in- 
 fantry struck Ransom's and Wallace's Brigades on 
 the return.' There had been a good deal of hard 
 fighting north of the White Oak Road before 
 reaching this angle at aU. 
 
 Nor were the troops in the main works and 
 about the "angle" and the "return" — ^as both the 
 orders and the diagram indicated — ^by any means 
 all the force we had to contend with that day. 
 Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry, dismotm.ted, now com- 
 manded by Munford, — among them Stuart's old 
 brigade, and as their officers said, "as good 
 marksmen as ever fired a gun, " — ^were confronting 
 our advance, all the way rotmd, not less than 
 
 ' It was from this that our advance, Ayres and Crawford, was first 
 s':ruck. Testimony of General Munford, Warren Court Records, p. 442. 
 
i6o The Passing of the Armies 
 
 fifteen hundred skilled and veteran soldierSj — no 
 sort of people to be ignored by us, nor by those 
 reporting the battle to be wholly on the angle and 
 on our cavalry front. 
 
 Now this was a very different state of facts from 
 that anticipated and pictured by us, and we had 
 to rectify all our Hnes under heavy fire in the midst 
 of battle. Who was responsible for this misap- 
 prehension? It would appear that the staff of- 
 ficer making the reconnoissance had not examined 
 the whole field or all of the enemy's position. 
 Possibly Munford's cavalry had not then reached 
 that portion of the field. But a discrepancy of a 
 thousand yards in a report of such consequence is 
 a pretty wide error. It might be said that Warren 
 was responsible for assuring himself perfectly of 
 the conditions in his front of attack. But Sheridan 
 saw and approved the diagram; and if anybody 
 is to be blamed, he must be considered ultimately, 
 and in a military sense, responsible for these mis- 
 apprehensions. At any rate there was a very 
 imperfect reconnoissance, from which we all suf- 
 fered; but it would be very unjust to place the 
 blame on the Fifth Corps or its commander. 
 
 It was charged by General Sheridan and some 
 of his staff that the right of Ayres' line, which 
 they call skirmishers, behaved badly on receiving 
 the first fire, — ^that they threw themselves on the 
 ground and fired into the air; that they even broke 
 and ran; and that General Warren did not exert 
 himself to correct the confusion. As if the corps 
 commander's duty was to be on a brigade skirmish 
 
Five Forks i6i 
 
 line in a great wide-sweeping movement of his 
 entire corps! Sheridan and Ayres would seem to 
 be assistance enough for Gwyn in handling his 
 little skirmish line. But Sheridan says more 
 deliberately and explicitly before the Warren 
 Court: "Our skirmish line lay down; the fire of 
 the enemy was very slight. The line became 
 confused, and commenced firing straight in the air." 
 A somewhat difficult operation, it may be remarked 
 parenthetically, for men Ijdng down, — ^unless the 
 resultant of two such compound forces as the enemy 
 in front and Sheridan behind made them roll over 
 fiat on their backs, caUing on heaven for aid. 
 "The poor fellows," he continues, "had been 
 fighting behind breastworks, for a long period, and 
 when they got out to attack breastworks, they 
 seem to have been a little timid."' They were 
 attacking breastworks then, out at the Church 
 Road crossing! But this is perhaps a fling at the 
 Army of the Potomac in the soft places of " Grant's 
 Campaign, " in which they lost more men than Lee 
 had in his entire army, and saved the other quarter 
 by now and then entrenching when put momen- 
 tarily on the defensive. Ayres does not relish this 
 remark, whether intended for excuse or sarcasm. 
 He answers that his troops, most of them, had 
 fought at Gettysburg, and through the Wilderness, 
 Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and the 
 Weldon Railroad, and none of them had ever but 
 once fought behind breastworks.^ 
 
 The unsteadiness of Ayres' skirmishers was 
 
 ' Testimony, Warren Court Records, p. 254. ' Ibid, p. 450. 
 
i62 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 no vital matter. It was a trifling circumstance, 
 hardly relevant to the charge of indifference and 
 incompetency on Warren's part, and did not war- 
 rant the launching of thunderbolts at the whole 
 Fifth Corps. At the worst, the commander of the 
 skirmish line might have been reprimanded and "re- 
 lieved, " but hardly the commander of the corps. 
 
 I am pained on more accounts than one to find 
 that General Grant in his notice of our action that 
 afternoon, as given in his Memoirs (volume ii., 
 page 443), uses the following language: '-'-Griflfin's 
 Division, in backing to get ou t of the wny "GTaT 
 sg yere cr oss-fire of the ene my, was found m arching 
 away from the fighting. " He adds, havvgver,jthat.— 
 afterar'Wtiile~it'Was'''"broughE bacZ^'^'andTdid excel- 
 lent service. This is an extraordinary statement, 
 — or at any rate it is to be hoped it is not an 
 ordinary one in writing history, — ^to put down 
 authoritatively as the record of our conduct and 
 spirit that day. 
 
 "Backing to get out of the way of fire"? Grif- 
 fin's Division? At what point in their history? 
 "Backing from a cross-fire" here? The fire first 
 followed was that of Munford's cavalry on their 
 front and right while advancing according to 
 orders; and "backing" from this would have 
 thrown them directly on the celebrated "angle," 
 where indeed they did arrive most timely, and on 
 purpose to meet a "cross-fire, " which they did not 
 back out of. "Away from the fighting"? Let 
 Ayres, and Ransom, and Wallace, and Wood, and 
 Sheridan answer. "Found"? By whom? "Brought 
 
Five Forks 163 
 
 back"? By what? They were found at the 
 "angle," and brought themselves there ahead of 
 the finders. Saul, the seeker of old, got more lost 
 than the domestic wanderers he was after: they 
 were in their place before he was; but the seeker 
 found a kingdom, and doubtless forgave himself 
 and the animals whose society he missed. 
 
 But this is a very serious charge against Griffin's 
 Division, and in time of active service would 
 warrant a court of inquiry. And even now the 
 statement of one so revered cannot but be injurious 
 to its reputation and its honor. 
 
 To have stated this as fact without being sure of 
 it is so unlike the truthfulness and magnanimity 
 of that great character, that we are forced to be- 
 lieve he has here fallen before his only weak- 
 ness, — ^that of trusting too implicitly to those 
 whom he liked. If General Grant was to honor us 
 by his notice at all, we should suppose he would 
 acquaint himself with the facts. He seems, how- 
 ever, on so comparatively tinimportant a topic, to 
 have innocently absorbed the impression made 
 upon him by parties interested in justifying an 
 arbitrary act of authority. If General Grant 
 could have looked into the case, he would have 
 seen that this statement was not only unjust, but 
 the very reverse of truth. The pressing sense of 
 his approaching end compelled General Grant to 
 finish his book in haste. However painful it may 
 be to review words written under circumstances so 
 affecting, it is but just to inquire into the grounds 
 of the accusation. 
 
164 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Grififin's orders were to follow Crawford, but 
 the spirit of his position was that of a reserve; 
 and this is held in hand ready to go in at a critical 
 moment when and where most needed. All the 
 facts necessary to adduce are that this division 
 strictly, and with painstaking fidelity, — not in 
 stupid quiescence, — ^followed its orders, until a 
 moment came when it promptly acted in accord- 
 ance with the spirit of its orders and of the whole 
 plan of battle. It was "reserved" for that very 
 kind of thing. And no one can say it fell short of 
 its duty or the standard of its ancient honor. 
 
 The evidence is explicit and ample that the head 
 of this division was at the angle of the works with 
 Ayres and helped him to carry it. This is directly 
 testified to by commanding officers of the "Mary- 
 land Brigade" on Ayres' right, and of the 4th 
 Delaware on Gwyn's right, who say that Griffin's 
 troops were on the flank and rear of the rebel line 
 at the angle before they attacked it in front.' This 
 is confirmed by officers of the highest character in 
 Ransom's Brigade on the left of the angle.^ Gen- 
 
 ■ Colonel Stanton, who succeeded Bowerman in command of Ayres* 
 Second Brigade, says the enemy were struck on their left and rear and 
 forced in confusion on his front at the angle. Captain Buckingham, 
 commanding the 4th Delaware, the extreme right of Ayres' Division, 
 says our troops had struck the enemy's works from the north at the 
 time he reached them in front, facing west. 
 
 • Captain Paucette, 56th North Carolina, Ransom's Brigade, fully 
 confirms this; and Honorable Thomas R. Roulac, 49th North Carolina, 
 says that when the angle was carried, his troops had been attacked from 
 the north and west, as well as on their proper front; and this by troops 
 he saw moving down on them from the north, and that it was a "hand 
 to hand" fight, "with clubbed muskets." See also North Carolina 
 Regiments, 1861-63, vol. iii., p. 143. 
 
Five Forks 165 
 
 eral Ayres says substantially the same in his testi- 
 mony before the Warren Court.' General Sheri- 
 dan himself admits this/ It is evident, however, 
 that in recounting his impression of the fight at the 
 angle he failed to give prominence to the fact — 
 of no consequence to him, or to the general result, 
 as to the partictilar troops engaged; and moreover, 
 if acknowledged, making against his charge that 
 Warren did not bring in his other divisions to sup- 
 port Ayres — that Griffin's troops quite as much as 
 Ayres' took part in carrying that angle. Indeed, 
 he most probably regarded the troops of Griffin 
 whom he met here as part of Ayres' command. 
 For this would explain most of the discrepancies 
 in his statements compared with established and 
 admitted facts. 
 
 But in truth the fight was by no means over 
 when the angle was carried. Although tactically 
 the result was a foregone conclusion when this was 
 done, and although the fighting there was for a 
 few minutes sharp, yet the hard fighting was in the 
 whole field where the enemy made their successive 
 stands with such cotirage and desperation. Griffin's 
 part in this, and even Crawford's, cannot be 
 ignored. 
 
 But it is insisted that Crawford's Division 
 marched out of the fight. What is true is that 
 it did not swing in promptly on Ayres' when he 
 
 ' Ayres says Chamberlain's troops at the angle were somewhat in 
 advance of his at the critical moment. Warren Court Records, p. 267 
 and p. 1080. 
 
 " Testimony, Records Warren Court, p. 123. 
 
i66 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 changed front to the left. That was an error, and 
 an inexcusable departure from positive orders, not 
 being warranted by the developments of the battle. 
 But something is to be said about its cause, and 
 its practical results. The diagram indicated to 
 Crawford that his division would strike the enemy 
 first at the "angle." Encountering serious re- 
 sistance on crossing the White Oak Road, and 
 naturally drawn towards it, he kept on, expecting 
 perhaps that he was shortly to encounter the main 
 force of the enemy in their works, and not observing 
 the more severe attack which fell on Ajres' left, — 
 where, indeed, the general orders for the battle 
 should have prepared him to understand it, and 
 take accordant action. In such case, Griffin would 
 have taken in hand what was opposing Crawford. 
 But the enemy before him led him to a wider sweep, 
 in the course of which he confronted not only the 
 two thousand dismounted cavalry, but at length 
 large bodies of the infantry broken from their first 
 hold and trying to make a stand on the Ford Road. 
 He had fighting aU the way around. Calling our 
 fight at the angle, on our extreme left, "the front, " 
 and saying that General Warren was not "in the 
 fight," while it might be pardoned as an excited 
 ejaculation in the heat of battle, will not stand as 
 sober truth, or as the premise for so violent a 
 conclusion. And all those people who ring changes 
 on the "obliquing off" of Crawford and Griffin 
 from the center of action, "marching away from 
 the fighting," or "drifting out of" what they call 
 (by a familiar figure of speech) "the fight, " do not 
 
Five Forks 167 
 
 tell us that this appearance was because Ayres was 
 suddenly compelled to make a square change of 
 front, and those who did not instantly conform 
 and follow might seem to be obliquing to the right, 
 when in fact they were "swinging to the left" 
 according to orders, — unfortunately by too wide a 
 sweep, having a very active enemy in their front. 
 In this concern, some minds are undtily affected 
 by that very natural notion that the fight is where 
 they are; although in the case of General Sheridan 
 it must be admitted that "the point was well 
 taken." Crawford's wide movement was un- 
 doubtedly an error, and a costly one for Warren; 
 but the simple fact that Crawford lost more men 
 in the battle than both the other divisions together 
 — ^more indeed than all the rest, cavalry and in- 
 fantry together — ^goes to show that some of the 
 fight was where he was. 
 
 These accusations against the conduct of each 
 of Warren's divisions, while susceptible of being 
 magnified and manipulated so as to produce a 
 certain forensic effect, are of no substantial weight. 
 Even if true in the sharpest sense, they would be 
 overstrained and uncalled for considering how the 
 battle ended, and by whom it was mainly fought. 
 
 But the case against Warren seems to be labored. 
 Small matters are accentuated and accimiulated 
 as if to make weight for some special conclusion. 
 
 First there is the accusation of a manner of in- 
 difference on Warren's part previous to the action. 
 As to this, opinions would vary. There is no 
 doubt this feeling on General Sheridan's part 
 
1 68 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 was very deep and disturbing. That must be con- 
 sidered. Those who knew Warren best saw no 
 indifference. He was not in his usual spirits, — ^and 
 we cannot wonder at it, — but he was intense rather 
 than expressive. He knew what was depending, 
 and what was called for, and put his energies into 
 the case more mentally than muscularly. His 
 subordinates understood his earnestness. 
 
 The broad ground of reason — and a valid one if 
 substantiated by fact — ^for dissatisfaction with 
 General Warren's conduct in the battle, and for his 
 removal from command in consequence, would be 
 that he was not in proper position during the battle 
 to command his whole corps, and did not effectually 
 command it. That at a sharp and critical point 
 he was not present where General Sheridan wanted 
 him is another matter, which does not in itself 
 support the former conclusion. 
 
 In a military and highly proper sense, General 
 Warren was responsible for the conduct of his 
 corps, and ultimately for that of each of his divi- 
 sions. There are two ways in which such control 
 might be exercised: by prevention, or by correction. 
 It was Crawford's duty to keep his vital connection 
 with Ayres, and if in any way it should be broken, 
 to be on the alert to see and to act. Warren 
 should hold him responsible for that. And if he 
 could not at the start rouse Crawford, whose 
 peculiarities he knew, to a vivid conception of the 
 anatomy and physiology of the case, he shotild 
 have had a staff officer charged with the duty of 
 keeping Crawford closed on Ayres, while he himself 
 
Five Forks 169 
 
 at the point where he cotild. keep in touch with his 
 whole corps should hold Griffin under his hand as 
 the ready and trusted reserve prepared for the 
 unexpected. 
 
 It may be questioned, perhaps, whether it was 
 wise to give Crawford that front Une and wheeling 
 flank in a movement of such importance, and make 
 him a guide for Griffin. It would have been bet- 
 ter (as Griffin and Ayres said later in the day) 
 to put Griffin on Ayres* right, in the order in which, 
 curiously enough, Griffin's brigades put themselves 
 as if by some spiritual attraction, or possibly only 
 common sense. 
 
 But it may be justly said that, whatever errors 
 the development of the battle disclosed, Warren 
 shotild have made his troops conform to the state 
 of facts. He did. We can well understand how 
 exasperating it must have been to General Sheridan 
 when Ayres was so suddenly, and it seems un- 
 expectedly, struck on the left flank, to find the 
 largest division of the corps not turning with him, 
 but drawing away from the tactical focus and 
 the close envelopment of it intended, and getting 
 into the place on the wheeling flank which was 
 assigned to Mackenzie's cavalry, and crowding 
 Mackenzie "out of the fight." Griffin, when the 
 exigencies on the left disclosed this error, hastened 
 to put in his rear brigade, — ^the nearest, — ^now 
 become the leading one. Warren with the same 
 intent, passing him, pushed on for Crawford with 
 feverish effort not short of agony. Indeed he 
 did more than could be legally required. He 
 
170 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 performed acts of "supererogation," — ^voluntary 
 works and above the conrmandments,- — ^which 
 certainly shotild have saved him from perdition. 
 He undertook the duties of staff officer for Craw- 
 ford. He got hold of Kellogg's Brigade and posted 
 it as a "marker" in the midst of the Sydnor woods, 
 while he went off to find the rest of Crawford, and 
 make him execute the grand left wheel; when one 
 of Sheridan's staff coming along, astonished at this 
 dumbshow, a brigade stationary, "marking time" 
 at such a crisis, orders the marker into the "fight " ; 
 which the gallant commander begins right there, 
 but ends soon after with a more exacting antagonist 
 and with equal glory. 
 
 Meantime finding Crawford disporting himself 
 on the tangent of a two-mile curve, Warren stuck 
 to him like a tutor, leading him in on a quick 
 radius to the supposed center, — ^which, be it borne 
 in mind, we were all the time shifting off to the 
 westward, making his route exhibit all the marvels 
 of the hyperbola. His guide had gone into the 
 vortex, and all he could do, in coming back with 
 Crawford's recovered men, was to follow the fire, 
 which we were battering off to the Forks. The 
 cyclone had become a cycloid. So that Crawford 
 was constantly obstructed by fugitives from the 
 fight crowding him worse and worse aU the way 
 around; and when at last he struck the enemy's 
 works, it was by no fatilt of Warren's that he struck 
 them at their western end, near the Gilliam field, 
 instead of at the left and center through the Sydnor 
 fields. Things being as they were, Warren got his 
 
Five Forks 171 
 
 corps into the "fight" as quickly and effectively 
 as he or anybody else possibly cotild. 
 
 But it is charged that the failvire to close quickly 
 on Ayres imperiled the result of the whole battle.' 
 Recalling the fact that Griffin did not fail to close 
 very promptly on Ayres, striking the "return" 
 before' Ayres struck the "angle," and the fact 
 that the battle went on in the general way intended 
 only by a wider sweep and more complete envelop- 
 ment, we should give attention to this remark, 
 made in a manner so forcible. General Sheridan's 
 judgment as a tactician can hardly be questioned; 
 nor can his deliberate statement of it. But as we 
 are now on the line of hypothesis, we may be 
 entitled to consider what would have been the 
 result in case Ayres had been withstood, or even 
 repulsed, in his first attack. In the assertion 
 before us, no account is made of Griffin's troops. 
 Is it assumed that they were a flock of stray sheep, 
 engaged in backing out of fire? What they would 
 do may be judged from what they did. And can 
 anyone suppose the enemy would consider them- 
 selves in a very triumphant position between 
 three bodies of otir troops: — ^Ayres in front; the 
 cavalry in rear; and two divisions of the Fifth 
 Corps on their left flaiik as they would then front? 
 How long does anyone believe it would be, at 
 such a signal, before the whole Fifth Corps and our 
 cavalry also would whirl in, and catch the enemy 
 
 'General Sheridan says: "If Ayres had been defeated, Crawford 
 would have been captured: the battle would have been lost." Testi- 
 mony, Warren Court Records, p. 125. 
 
172 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 in a maelstrom of destruction? What did happen, 
 as it was, would have happened quicker had Ayres 
 fared harder. 
 
 Or suppose Ayres was not so fortunately struck 
 from the extended outwork, and had marched past 
 the left of the enemy's entrenched line two hundred 
 and fifty yards away, as he says he was doing.' 
 Being on Griffin's left, he must have struck the 
 left flank of the "return," and soon the rear of 
 the enemy's main line on the White Oak Road. 
 Griffin would then have been in immediate con- 
 nection and would have swung with him. It would 
 have taken a little longer; but the enemy would 
 have been enveloped all the same. Sheridan's 
 brilliant tactics would have been triumphant. 
 Only Warren would have shared the glory. 
 
 Another consideration. Take things exactly 
 as they were said to be, — ^Ayres at the "angle"; 
 Griffin and Crawford out. What if those three 
 Confederate brigades, ordered out of the Claiborne 
 entrenchments that afternoon to fall on the flank 
 of the Fifth Corps attacking at Five Forks, had 
 come straight down, and not gone a long round- 
 about way as they did, striking too late and too far 
 away for any good or harm, — ^what would have 
 been the effect in such case had not these two 
 divisions of the Fifth Corps been out there to stop 
 them? 
 
 But suppose, again, all had gone as ordered and 
 
 » Testimony, Warren Court Records, p. 255. Major Benyaurd, Corps 
 of Engineers, says Ayres' left passed the "Bass" house to our right 
 of it. Warren Court Records, p. 160. 
 
Five Forks 173 
 
 intended, and Crawford and GriflEin had swung 
 in on the rear of the lines on the White Oak Road. 
 Wotdd it not have been awkward to have these 
 five thousand fresh men' come down on the backs 
 of our infantry, while having its hands full in 
 front? What could Mackenzie have done with 
 these men and Pitzhugh Lee's cavalry together? 
 Lucky was it for us, in either case, that these five 
 thousand infantrymen did not get down there. 
 Lucky would it have been in such case, that Craw- 
 ford and Griffin should happen to be out as flankers. 
 
 It is a very remarkable circumstance that neither 
 of the three chief Confederate commanders was 
 actually present on the field during the progress of 
 the battle. They had been on the ground earlier 
 it seems on retiring from Dinwiddie; but for one 
 reason or another they had one by one retired across 
 Hatcher's Run, — ^looking after their "commtinica- 
 tions" very Kkely.^ Pickett returned to the field 
 only after we had aU gained the Ford Road at 
 about 6 P.M., but Fitzhugh Lee and Rosser not at 
 all. Pickett narrowly escaped the shots of our 
 men as he attempted to pass them to reach his 
 broken lines towards the White Oak Road. 
 
 It is also remarkable that General Robert E, Lee, 
 although himself alert, was not kept informed by 
 
 ' General Hunton, before the Warren Court, placed the numbers of 
 these three brigades, when they attacked us the day before, first at 
 seven thousand five hundred, but was induced by the efiEect of cross 
 examination afterwards to reduce this to five thousand. Records, pp. 
 629 and 630. 
 
 ^ Private correspondence of Confederate officers present gives some 
 curious details as to a shad dinner on the north side of Hatcher's Run. 
 
174 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Fitzhugh Lee or Pickett of the movements of the 
 Fifth Corps in relation to Five Forks, and that Lee 
 was led by a word from Pickett to suppose that 
 Fitzhugh Lee's and Rosser's cavalry were both 
 close in support of Pickett's left flank at Five Forks. ' 
 This was not the truth. Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry 
 under Munford was over a thousand yards east of 
 Pickett's left at the beginning and during the day 
 was pressed around his rear so as to reach his 
 troops after their Hnes had all been broken. And 
 as for Rosser's cavalry they were at no time on the 
 field. We know now that General Lee afterwards 
 wrote General Wade Hampton in these words: 
 "Had you been at Five Forks with your cavalry 
 the disaster would not have befallen my army." 
 Nor does it appear that General Anderson, com- 
 manding General Lee's reserves in this quarter, 
 knew anything of the pressing need of them at Five 
 Forks until all was over. 
 
 So there are some other generals beside Warren 
 who helped Sheridan to his fame at Five Forks. 
 
 So much for the tactics of that battle. In spite 
 of errors it was a great victory. It was Sheridan's 
 battle. The glory of it is his. With his cavalry 
 there was no error nor failure. Their action was 
 not less than magnificent; the central thought car- 
 ried into every brilliant act; — a picture to satisfy 
 any point of view, idealist or impressionist. 
 
 As to the strategic merits of the battle, a few 
 reflections may be permitted. Undoubtedly, as 
 things were, it was an important battle. But our 
 
 " Rebellion Records, serial 95, p. 1264. 
 
Five Forks 175 
 
 isolated position there invited fresh attack; and 
 we only escaped it by the blundering or over-cau- 
 tious course of the forces sent out by Lee from 
 the Claiborne front that afternoon, and which in 
 Sheridan's soUcitude we were pushed out to meet 
 that night. Then, too, we were much farther off 
 from the Petersburg front, and the opportunity for 
 concerted action with the other corps in the line 
 for general assatilt. And finally, we were in no 
 more advantageous position now than we should 
 have been if we had ttimed the Claiborne flank of 
 the enemy's entrenchments, and cut the Southside 
 Road at Sutherland's the day before.' Indeed, 
 the very first thing we did the next rhoming after 
 Five Forks was to move back to turn this same 
 flank on the Claiborne Road and gain possession of 
 Sutherland's. But Miles had taken care of this, 
 as we might have done before him. Only Lee had 
 now got a day's start of us, the head of his column 
 well out on its retreat, necessitated not by Five 
 Forks alone but by gallant work along our whole 
 confronting line, — ^which might have been done the 
 day before, and saved the long task of racing day 
 and night, of toils and tribulations and losses 
 recorded and unrecorded, which brought fame to 
 Appomattox, and the end of deeds rewarded and 
 unrewarded. 
 
 A study of this battle shows vexing provocations, 
 
 ' The right of the enemy's entrenchments on the Claiborne Road after 
 they were driven in on the afternoon of March 31st was by no means 
 strongly held. Testimony of General Hunton, Warren Court Records, 
 p. 629. 
 
176 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 but does not show satisfactory reasons for the 
 removal of General Warren from command of the 
 Fifth Corps. The fact is that much of the dis- 
 satisfaction with him was of longer standing. 
 We recall the incident that General Sheridan did 
 not wish to have the Fifth Corps with him at the 
 start'; also the suggestion by General Grant that 
 Sheridan might have occasion to remove him, and 
 the authority to do so''; then the keen disappoint- 
 ments of the Dinwiddle overture the day before, 
 and the exasperation at Warren's not reporting to 
 Sheridan that night.^ We recall General Griffin's 
 remark in the morning that something Uke this 
 would happen before the day was through.'* We 
 recur also to the complaints earUer noticed.^ 
 There was an unfavorable judgment of Warren's 
 manner of handling a corps; an uncomfortable 
 sense of certain intellectual peculiarities of his; 
 a disHke of his self -centered manner and tempera- 
 ment and habit generally, and his rather injudicious 
 way of expressing his opinion on tender topics. 
 There was a variety of antagonism towards General 
 Warren stored up and accumulating in General 
 Sheridan's mind, and the tension of a heated 
 moment brought the catastrophe. 
 
 No one can doubt General Sheridan's "right" 
 to remove Warren; but whether he was right in 
 doing so is another question, and one involving 
 many elements. It is necessary that a chief com- 
 
 ' See paper on the White Oak Road, vol. L, of this series, p. 230. 
 " Idem, p. 246. 3 Idem, pp. 244-45. 
 
 " Ante. s Anie, note. 
 
Five Forks 177 
 
 mander, who is under grave responsibilities, should 
 have the power to control and even displace the 
 subordinates on whom he depends for the execution 
 of his plans. Nor is it to be expected that he can 
 properly be held to give strict account of action so 
 taken, or be called upon to analyze his motives and 
 justify himself by reasons to be passed upon by 
 others. In this case, there are many subjective 
 reasons — ^influences acting on the mind of General 
 Sheridan himself and not easily made known to 
 others, impressions from accounts of previous 
 action, the appearance of things at the moment, 
 and his state of mind in consequence — ^which go 
 to strengthen the favorable presumption accorded 
 to his act. But as to the essential equity of it, 
 the moral justification of it, opinions will be 
 governed by knowledge of facts, and these extend- 
 ing beyond the incidents or accidents of this field. 
 
 The simple transfer of a corps commander is 
 not a disgrace, nor necessarily an injury. General 
 Warren had no vested right to the command of the 
 Fifth Corps. And if Sheridan expected to have 
 this corps with him in this campaign, in which he 
 held assurances of a conspicuous and perhaps pre- 
 eminent part, and General Warren was to him a 
 persona non grata, we cannot wonder that he 
 should wish to remove him. He had already ob- 
 jected to having this corps with him; but after 
 trial he did not send back the corps, but its com- 
 mander. It was the time, place, and manner of this 
 removal, the implications involved in it, and the 
 vague reasons given for it, which made the griev- 
 
178 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ance for General Warren. He was immediately 
 assigned to another command; but even if Grant 
 had restored him to the Fifth Corps, this wotild not 
 wipe out that record, which stood against his honor. 
 It is highly probable that a cotirt-martial would not 
 have found him guilty of misconduct warranting 
 such a punishment as dismissal from his command. 
 There was not then, as there is not now, any 
 tribunal with power to change the conclusion so 
 summarily given by Sheridan, or to annul or miti- 
 gate the material effects of it. .Bat-Suc h - reaso ns 
 
 as were given fo r this affec te d Wa rr pn'^ : hnnnr^ and 
 hence llF^rsisFently invoked a court of inquiry. 
 All that he~cDuldriope for from such a court was 
 the opportunity thus given for the facts and 
 measturably the motives and feelings affecting the 
 case to be brought out and placed upon the public 
 records. 
 
 The posture of the parties before that court was 
 peculiar. The members of the court were general 
 officers of the active army. The applicant was 
 then a lieutenant-colonel of engineers. The re- 
 spondent — ^virtually the defendant — was lieuten- 
 ant-general of the armies of the United States, 
 — ^the superior of course, and t^e commander, of 
 every member of the court, as also of most of the 
 witnesses before it, then in the military service. 
 The "next friend" and chief witness — called by 
 the applicant, but necessarily for the respondent — 
 was General Grant, ex-President of the United 
 States, who still carried an immense prestige and 
 influence. The traditions of the whole War De- 
 
Five Forks 179 
 
 partment were for sustaining military authority. 
 We could not expect this court to bring in a verdict 
 of censure on General Sheridan, or anything that 
 would amount to that. We can only wonder at 
 the courage of all who gave Warren any favorable 
 endorsement or explanation, and especially of the 
 court which found so little to censure in the conduct 
 of General Warren as commander of the Fifth 
 Corps in those last three days. The court sus- 
 tained General Sheridan in his right, but General 
 Warren felt that the revelation of the facts was of 
 the nature of vindication. It came too late to save 
 much of his life; it may have saved what was 
 dearer. 
 
 I am by no means sure but that injustice must 
 be taken by a miHtary officer as a necessary part of 
 his risks, of the conditions and chances of his ser- 
 vice, to be suffered in the same way as wounds and 
 sicknesses, in patience and humility. But when 
 one feels that his honor and the truth itself are 
 impugned, then that larger personality is concerned 
 wherein one belongs to others and his worth is 
 somehow theirs. Then he does not satisfy himself 
 with regret,; — ^that strange complex feeling that 
 something is right which is now impossible, — and 
 even the truth made known becomes a consolation. 
 
 The battle of Five Forks was also the battle of 
 the White Oak Road, on an extended front, in an 
 accidental and isolated position, and at a delayed 
 hoiir. It was successful, owing to the character of 
 the troops, and the skill and vigor of the com- 
 mander. Appomattox was a glorious result of 
 
i8o The Passing of the Armies 
 
 strong pushing and hard marching. But both 
 could have been forestaUed, and all that fighting, 
 together with that at Sailor's Creek, High Bridge, 
 and Farmville have been concentrated in one grand 
 assault, of which the sharp-edged line along the 
 White Oak Road would have been one blade of the 
 shears, and Ord and Wright and Parke on the main 
 line the other, and the hard and costly ten days' 
 chase and struggle would have been spared so 
 many noble men. Lee would not have got a day's 
 start of us in the desperate race. Sheridan cutting 
 the enemy's communications and rolling up their 
 scattering fugitives would have shown his great 
 qualities, and won conspicuous, though not su- 
 preme honors. Warren would have shared the 
 glories of his corps. Humphreys and Wright with 
 their veterans of the Second and Sixth, whose 
 superb action compelled the first flag of truce con- 
 templating Lee's surrender, would not have stood 
 idly around the headquarters' flag of the Army of 
 the Potomac, with Longstreet's right wing brought 
 to bay before them, waiting till Lee's final answer 
 to Grant should come through Sheridan to the 
 Fifth Corps front, where Ord, of the Army of the 
 James, commanded. And Meade, the high-bom 
 gentleman and high-born soldier, would have been 
 spared the slight of being held back with the main 
 body of his army, while the laurels were bestowed 
 by chance or choice, which had been so fairly won 
 by that old army in long years of heroic patience in 
 well-doing and suffering; — ^might have been spared 
 the after humiliation of experiencing in his own 
 
Five Forks i8i 
 
 person how fortune and favor preside in the final 
 distribution of honors in a country's recognition. 
 
 The Fifth Corps had an eventful history. Two 
 passages of it made a remarkable coincidence. It 
 was its misfortune to lose two of its commanders — 
 the first and the last in the field of action — ^by 
 measures so questionable as to call for a court of 
 review, by which, long after, both were substan- 
 tially vindicated: Fitz-John Porter, accounted the 
 most accomplished corps commander on the Penin- 
 stda, and "heir apparent" to the command of the 
 army, and Warren, whom Grant says he had 
 looked upon for commander of the army in case 
 anything should take from the field the sterling 
 Meade.^ Who from such beginning could have 
 foretold the end! And Meade, — ^he, too, went 
 from the Fifth Corps to the command of the army, 
 and fovind there a troubled eminence and an un- 
 crowned end. 
 
 Shakespeare tells us, poetizing fate or faith: 
 
 There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rough-hew them how we will. 
 
 To our common eyes it often seems a dark divin- 
 ity that rules; and the schoolmaster might inter- 
 change the verbs. 
 
 ' Grant's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 216. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE WEEK OF FLYING FIGHTS 
 
 THE victory at Five Porks had swept away a 
 flying buttress of the enemy's stronghold. 
 We had broken down the guard of a 
 tactical movement to hold their threatened com- 
 munications and cover their entrenched lines. We 
 may be said to have virtually turned the right of 
 the defenses of Petersburg and broken the Con- 
 federate hold upon Virginia. - It was, indeed, a 
 brilliant overture, giving courage to our hearts 
 and stimulus to our energies. 
 
 Immediately on learning of Sheridan's victory 
 at Five Forks, Grant reissued the suspended order 
 directing an assatilt on the long-confronted de- 
 fenses of Petersburg, which was executed by our 
 Sixth and Ninth Corps with the assistance of the 
 Army of the James with splendid valor and deci- 
 sive effects. But he felt anxious about our isolated 
 position at Five Forks, and ordered Humphreys 
 to make vigorous demonstrations to find a vul- 
 nerable spot in the enemy's entrenched line in his 
 front, and if he could not carry any portion of this, 
 
 to send Miles' Division up the White Oak Road 
 
 182 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 183 
 
 to Sheridan that night. To intensify the diversion, 
 our whole army in that quarter was to keep up a 
 roar of cannonading all night long. 
 
 We now have to chronicle movements of ex- 
 traordinary vacillation and complexity. It will be 
 remembered that on the night of the battle most 
 of our corps was moved out towards the Clai- 
 borne on the White Oak Road, and that part of 
 Griffin's Division now commanded by Bartlett 
 remained on the field with a guard at the Ford of 
 Hatcher's Run, and a picket encompassing that 
 storied and now haunted ground. We hardly 
 know what General Grant can be desiring to 
 establish when he says {Memoirs, ii., p. 446) that 
 Sheridan, "appreciating the importance of the 
 situation, sent the Fifth Corps that night across 
 Hatcher's Run to just south west of Petersbvirg, 
 and faced them towards it." If he had done so, 
 there would have been a "diversion" on our end 
 of the line as well as elsewhere, and with music 
 and dancing; for this would have called us to 
 disprove one of the very doubtful axioms of 
 physics, that "two bodies cannot occupy the same 
 space at the same time," with such pyrotechnic 
 celebration as two clouds charged with opposite 
 electricities exhibit when driven to bivouac to- 
 gether in the same field of the heavens. We shotild 
 have camped inside the rebel lines, and a bedlam 
 of a bivouac that would have been. 
 
 After their defeat at Five Forks, the cavalry of 
 both the Lees joined Rosser at the Ford crossing 
 of Hatcher's Run, and then drew back on that 
 
i84 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 road to the Southside Railroad crossing. There 
 were gathered also the fugitives from Pickett's 
 and Johnson's Divisions, covered by the remainder 
 of those divisions that had not been in the fight, 
 — Hunton's Brigade of Pickett's Division, and 
 Wise's, Gracie's (commanded by Colonel Sanford), 
 and Fulton's of Johnson's Division, all under com- 
 mand of General R. H. Anderson. Their tiltimate 
 destination was to cover the enemy's right flank 
 at Sutherland's Station. These would have been 
 unpleasant fellows to camp with on the night of 
 April I St. 
 
 Humphreys, finding the entrenchments in his 
 front impregnable, at about midnight sent Miles 
 up the White Oak Road to Sheridan. But at day- 
 light Sheridan faced him right about, and with two 
 divisions of the Fifth Corps following, pushed back 
 down the White Oak Road to attack the Claiborne 
 flank, — ^where we had left it on the night of the 
 thirty-first. Meantime, this morning of April 2d 
 saw the splendid and tritimphant assault of ourarmy 
 upon the outer Petersburg defenses. Humphreys, 
 learning of this at about nine o'clock, attacked 
 the works in his own front along the eastern end of 
 the White Oak Road, defended by McGowan's, 
 MacRay's, Scales', and Cook's Brigades of HiU's 
 Corps commanded by Heth, and forced them out 
 of their works by their right flank towards the 
 Claiborne Road. Humphreys followed them up 
 with his two divisions, and receiving word from 
 Miles that he was returning towards him, ordered 
 the whole Second Corps to pursue the enemy along 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 185 
 
 the Claiborne Road towards Sutherland's Station 
 with a view to cutting off the retreat of the fugi- 
 tives from Wright's and Ord's attacks, and closing 
 in on Petersburg. Sheridan, arriving at the Clai- 
 bomeRoad and learning this, thereupon faces about 
 the Fifth Corps, after having, strangely enough, 
 given Miles permission to attack the enemy- 
 there, and marches his men back over the White 
 Oak Road to Five Forks, and pushes on by the 
 Ford Road up to Hatcher's Run. What lost labor 
 for Miles and the Fifth Corps, running empty ex- 
 press up and down the White Oak Road! The 
 shuttlecock was flying again. In the meantime 
 Humphreys advancing with the two divisions to 
 join Miles for the contemplated movement on the 
 Claiborne flank and Sutherland's, having apprised 
 General Meade of his intention, flnds his action 
 disapproved by his superiors, and receives orders 
 to leave Miles and move his two other divisions 
 off by the Boydton Road towards Petersburg and 
 form on the left of the Sixth Corps. This, of 
 cotirse, left Miles to Sheridan, and Sheridan had 
 now left Miles. 
 
 As these apparently absurd performances in- 
 volve again the action and honor of the Fifth 
 Corps, it is proper to bring them under examination. 
 The accounts of the affair of Miles at Sutherland's 
 Station given by General Badeau, General Grant, 
 General Sheridan, and General Humphreys involve 
 irreconcilable differences; and it is necessary to 
 form our judgriients on the subject by taking into 
 accotmt the means of knowledge, and probable 
 
1 86 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 motives of action and of utterance, which go to 
 establish the credibility of witnesses. 
 
 First we are prone to wonder how it could be 
 that such a man as General Sheridan, — ^who does 
 not reconsider his determinations, — when within 
 less than two miles of the intended point of attack, 
 should suddenly retire with his whole command, 
 and leave Miles to fight the battle alone. It seems 
 equally strange that General Hiimphreys should 
 nearly at the same time turn and march off in 
 the opposite direction, towards Petersburg. It is 
 certainly a curious conjuncture that both Meade 
 and Sheridan should be pulling away from Miles' 
 high-toned division and the very respectable 
 company of Confederates about Sutherland's as 
 if they were not fit for their seeing. 
 
 Sheridan gives for his action a reason which 
 appears sufficient, and adds an opinion which is 
 significant. He says: "On the north side of 
 Hatcher's Run, I overtook Miles, who was anxious 
 to attack, and had a very fine and spirited division. 
 I gave him permission; but about this time General 
 Himiphreys came up, and receiving notice from 
 General Meade that he would take command of 
 Miles' Division, I relinquished it at once, and 
 faced the Fifth Corps to the rear. I afterwards 
 regretted giving up this division, as I beHeve the 
 enemy could at the time have been crushed at 
 Sutherland's depot. I returned to Five Forks, and 
 marched out the Ford Road towards Hatcher's 
 Run." 
 
 Two things are to be noted here: the reason why 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 187 
 
 Sheridan did not join the attack here, but released 
 himself from the fight and Miles from his jurisdic- 
 tion; and also his belief that this was the place at 
 which to crush the enemy. Some of the rest of us 
 had thought the same way on the 31st of March. 
 This testimony is also confirmed by the opinion of 
 the modest Humphreys, who cannot help sa3dng 
 that if the Second Corps could have been permitted 
 to continue its march in the morning, "the whole 
 force of the enemy there would probably have been 
 captured." This cumtdative testimony shows 
 what was lost by the antipathy of polarities, in the 
 presence of Miles, the mysterious repellant. 
 
 In reflecting on the probabilities of Meade's mo- 
 tive in ordering Humphreys away from Miles' Di- 
 vision when Sheridan was approaching it with the 
 intention of making an important fight there, it ap- 
 pears more than likely that Meade had a strong 
 intimation that Sheridan must have undisturbed 
 control of the entire operations on the extreme 
 left. To this effect we have the direct, although 
 perhaps unintentional, testimony of a most com- 
 petent witness. General Badeau, Grant's military 
 secretary, in his Military History of U. S. Grant, 
 vol. iii., p. 624, says: "Grant, however, intended 
 to leave Sheridan in command of Miles, and indeed 
 in full control of all the operations in this quarter 
 of the field; and supposing his views to have been 
 carried out, it was at this juncture that he ordered 
 Humphreys to be faced to the right and moved 
 towards Petersburg." This appears to settle that 
 part of the question, and takes the burden entirely 
 
i8B The Passing of the Armies 
 
 from Meade's shoulders, which he never seems to 
 have had the heart to roll off for himself. Sheri- 
 dan's motive, too, is readily seen by the same light. 
 "When he thought Miles had been ordered to resume 
 relations with his own corps commander, Sheridan 
 wished to have nothing to do with the fight, 
 although in his estimation this was the supreme 
 opportunity for "crushing the enemy." 
 
 It is a Uttle confusing to try to reconcile this 
 testimony and explanation, with General Grant's 
 statement in his ofSical report, that learning the 
 condition of things on the morning of April 2d, 
 Sheridan "returned Miles to his proper command." 
 If so, why did Sheridan give Miles permission to 
 attack at Sutherland's? And why, if the smashing 
 up of the rebel right flank was so easy to achieve 
 here, did he turn his back on Miles on the very 
 edge of battle, and leave to him the solitary honor 
 and peril of confronting there Heth's, and what 
 of Johnson's and Pickett's Divisions and Fitzhugh 
 Lee's cavalry, falling back that afternoon before 
 the Fifth Corps advance, should get into his front? 
 Certainly there were no other of the enemy west 
 of this point at that hour worth Sheridan's march- 
 ing the Fifth Corps ten miles round to hunt after. 
 
 It is a striking coincidence that Sheridan with 
 the Fifth Corps should have come so near to Miles 
 and the enemy, — two miles on the south of them, — 
 in the morning, at the moment when Humphreys 
 was first coming up with his two divisions for the 
 fight he anticipated, and then again, after the 
 middle of the afternoon, have come within two 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 189 
 
 miles of Sutherland's and of Miles fighting, on the 
 Cox Road west of them, and also just at the time 
 when Humphreys was "returning" from the direc- 
 tion of Petersburg with his division ordered by- 
 Grant to go up to Miles' relief. The play of 
 attraction and repulsion is something deep-lying 
 in the "law" of forces. 
 
 An effort has also been made to give the impres- 
 sion that these two appearances of Sheridan, on the 
 right and on the left of Miles at Sutherland's, were 
 moments of one and the same action, — ^parts of 
 one undivided movement. Whereas they were 
 separated by a wider detour, possibly imperiUng 
 qtiite as much as the eventful one of Crawford at 
 Five Porks, where Warren was the chief victim. 
 
 There are so many ctirious jiunbles of coincidence 
 and dislocation in the accotuits of Sheridan's 
 movements that day, — ^if we may not say in the 
 movements themselves, — ^that readers who are not 
 on the alert to keep things clear in their minds are 
 liable to lose their bearings. Badeau "bothers" 
 matters very much; as when he says (vol. iii., p. 
 520), "At noon the left wing under Sheridan 
 was still unheard from." It would seem that the 
 deliritim of writing history had reached the stupor 
 symptom somewhere. Grant must have known 
 that Sheridan had dropped Miles and gone back 
 to start for a longer rvin. We have Grant's state- 
 ment in his official report that he got worried 
 about Miles after a while, left as he was alone 
 when he ordered Humphreys away from him, and 
 Sheridan had abandoned him. He adds, in terms 
 
igo The Passing of the Armies 
 
 implying censtire of Humphreys: "I directed 
 Humphreys to send a division back to his relief. 
 He went himself." It reqtdred considerable bold- 
 ness in Humphreys to "go himself" with one of his 
 divisions. Warren had tried that, and it took him 
 so far he never got back. Whatever the much 
 buffeted Humphreys could have done, in obeying 
 orders, he wotild have been left with only one of his 
 divisions somewhere, and we cannot blame him 
 for trying to get where he had a chance of getting 
 his eye in range of two of them, when a mixed 
 fight was going on. And Grant ordering Hum- 
 phrey's divisions makes us wonder where Meade 
 was, supposed to command the corps of his army. 
 Though raised to functions of a higher power, the 
 ratio seems the same as that of Warren and 
 Hiomphreys to their commands, — ^the instinctive 
 dignity and abnormal solicitude of the hen with 
 one chicken. When Humphreys got to Miles, 
 that gallant officer had beaten the enemy from their 
 last stand; but the most of them had got off be- 
 tween Meade and Sheridan. 
 
 General Grant, with the sincere kindness of his 
 prepossessions, makes a special effort to have 
 General Sheridan appear as a direct participator 
 in the victory at Sutherland's. He allows Badeau 
 to speak to this effect. And he himself says in his 
 Memoirs (vol. ii., p. 451), "Sheridan then took 
 the enemy at Sutherland's Station, on the reverse 
 side from where Miles was, and the two together 
 captured the place, with a large ntimber of prisoners 
 and some pieces of artillery, and put the remainder, 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 191 
 
 portions of three Confederate corps, to flight. 
 Sheridan followed, and drove them until night, 
 when further ptirsuit was stopped. ^Miles biv- 
 ouacked for the night on the ground which he with 
 Sheridan had so handsomely carried by assault." 
 It was sometime before noon when Miles made his 
 first attack, and quite as late as 3 p.m. when he 
 made his last and completely successful one. At 
 this time the Fifth Corps, the head of Sheridan's 
 column, had got around as far as Cox's Station on 
 the Southside Railroad, within two miles of Suther- 
 land's, and was tearing up the rails there. Our 
 column was not near enough to MUes's fight to take 
 part in the actual assault, although no doubt 
 its rapid and close advance on the enemy's right 
 had some influence on the victory. But we never 
 thought of claiming part of the glory that belonged 
 to Miles, — except that he was not long a^o a Fifth 
 Corps boy. 
 
 The truth is that after all the pains to secvire for 
 Sheridan the glory of whatever was achieved on the 
 left, or as Badeau says, "in that quarter of the 
 field," when all came to the very field where by 
 unanimous consent the enemy's main force could 
 have been "crushed," and in fact was broken away 
 with less complete results by Miles' gallant fight, 
 Sheridan came perilously near — so near in truth 
 that the difference is inappreciable by the human 
 mind — ^to being found "not in the fight," by 
 reason of the far-reaching effect of his recoil from 
 the suddenly appearing Humphreys, who rose 
 upon him at the crowning moment when he gave 
 
192 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Miles permission to open the "crushing" fight. 
 Shakespeare puts it: 
 
 Ay, now, I see 'tis true; 
 For the blood-bolterfed Banquo smiles upon me, 
 And points at them for his. 
 
 It is a relief to resume the plain account of our 
 pursuit of tangible beings evading Five Forks, 
 It seems like passing from war to peace. Early on 
 the morning of the 2d our cavalry drew off north- 
 westerly from the Ford Road crossing of Hatcher's 
 Run to cut off some rebel cavalry reported to have 
 made a push in that direction. Sheridan having 
 returned from the Claiborne Road with the rest 
 of the Fifth Corps, at about noon otir column 
 moved out, my own command in the advance, 
 down the Ford Road. At Hatcher's Rtm a vigor- 
 ous demonstration of the enemy's skirmishers to 
 prevent ottr crossing was soon dislodged by a 
 gallant attack by Colonel Sniper with the 185th 
 New York. Throwing forward a strong skirmish 
 line, in command of Colonel Cunningham of the 
 32d Massachusetts, we pressed on for the Southside 
 Railroad. Hearing the noise of an approaching 
 train from the direction of Petersburg, I pushed 
 forward our skirmishers to catch it. A wild, 
 shriek of the steam-whistle brought our main line 
 up at the double-quick. There we find the train 
 held up, Cunningham mounted on the engine 
 pulling the whistle-valve wide open to announce 
 the arrival at a premature station of the last train 
 that tried to run the gauntlet out of Petersburg 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 193 
 
 under the Confederate flag. This train was 
 crowded with qtdte a mixed company as to color, 
 character, and capacity, but united in the single 
 aim of forming a personally-conducted southern 
 tour. The officers and soldiers we were obliged 
 to regard as prisoners of war: the rest we let go in 
 peace, if they could find it. It was now about one 
 o'clock. It is to be noted that this train appears to 
 have had no difficulty in getting by Sutherland's 
 at that hotu:. 
 
 I was now directed to advance and, if possible, 
 get possession of the Cox Road. This we found to 
 be well defended. A force of about ten thousand 
 men formed a strong Kne in front of us, but with 
 that "light order" of disposition and movement 
 which betokens a rear-guard. As this is sometimes, 
 however, the mask for formidable resistance, I 
 prepared to carry the position whatever it might 
 prove to be. Accordingly, I threw forward the 
 185th New York in extended but compact order, 
 covering the enemy's front, brought the two 
 battahons of the 198th Pennsylvania into line of 
 battle in support, placed the 189th New York, 
 Lieut.-Colonel Townsend commanding, in a large 
 tract of woods on the right with orders to move left 
 in front, ready to face outwards and protect that 
 flank which looked toward Sutherland's, and ad- 
 vanced briskly upon the opposing lines. They 
 proved to be Fitzhugh Lee's Division of cavalry 
 dismounted, which from character and experience 
 had acquired a habit of conservative demeanor. 
 But a strong dash broke them up, and we pressed 
 13 
 
194 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 them slowly before us along the Cox Road. An- 
 ticipating the btirden of the retreat from the direc- 
 tion of Petersburg to fall this way, I prepared to 
 hold this road against all comers, in the meantime 
 pushing forward to the bank of a branch of Hatch- 
 er's Rtm a mile short of Sutherland's. Here 
 my command was held in line and on the alert 
 while the rest of the Fifth Corps were engaged in 
 tearing up the Southside Railroad between us and 
 Cox's Station in our rear. We were on the flank 
 and rear of the enemy fighting Miles, but the stress 
 of that fire died away as we approached. Miles 
 had utterly routed the enemy. No doubt our 
 advancing along the Cox Road towards this point, 
 and also our preventing Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry 
 from joining the resistance to. Miles, had some 
 considerable effect on thie minds of the enemy, as 
 well as in determining the direction of their retreat, 
 and in so far helped Miles win his victory; but 
 this could hardly be construed as part of the action. 
 
 Our cavalry shortly afterwards coming up in our 
 rear, Sheridan with them pursued the fugitives 
 along their retreat, now northwesterly, our rear 
 division, Crawford's, joining in a skirmish at about 
 dusk. We turned off the Cox Road to the Namo- 
 zine, and moving out about two miles, bivouacked 
 at the junction of this road with the River Road, 
 which here turns north, leading to the Appomattox. 
 
 This was a hard day for my command. Being 
 in the advance and in contact with the enemy, we 
 had to move as nearly as possible in line of battle, 
 taking a wide breadth of that broken country, 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 195 
 
 through brush and tangle, swamp and mire. Eight 
 hotirs of this right upon such severe experience the 
 two days and nights before left the men utteriy 
 exhausted. But they gathered the sticks for their 
 little fires, and unrolled their slender haversacks, 
 disclosing treasures that were mostly remnants, 
 whether pork or sugar, biscuit or blankets — ■ 
 things provided for their earthly sustenance while 
 they were contending for ideals to come true for 
 them only in some other life, or far-away form. 
 Sic vos non vobis — ^not you for yourselves — ^says 
 Virgil to his bees and birds building nests and 
 storing up food, mostly for others. Strange 
 shadows fall across the glamour of glory. The law 
 of sharing for the most of mankind seems to be that 
 each shall give his best according to some inner 
 commandment, and receive according to the decree 
 of some far divinity, whose face is of a stranger, 
 and whose heart is alien to the motives and sym- 
 pathies that animate his own. 
 
 At daylight on the 3d we moved out on the 
 River Road on the south side of the Appomattox, 
 with the purpose of cutting off the enemy's retreat 
 from Petersbtirg. This day was remarkable in the 
 fact that then, for once, we had somebody ' ' ahead " 
 of the Fifth Corps except the enemy. The cavalry 
 were ahead this time, and that incident did not 
 add to the comfort of marching in the mud, which 
 in its nature, and without previous preparation, 
 was a sufficient test for human powers, physical 
 and moral. . We had, however, the stimulus of hear- 
 ing in exultant and wildly exaggerated phrase of the 
 
196 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 jfiight of the Confederate government from Rich- 
 mond, the full retreat of Lee's army from Virginia, 
 and the downfall of the Confederacy. The plain 
 facts were enough for us: Lee's army was in retreat 
 for Danville, the Richmond government broken 
 up, and the Confederacy at least mounted on its 
 last legs. The splendid work of the right wing of 
 our army on the 2d had set this^in motion, and we 
 still thought our restless behayior on the extreme 
 left had at least induced Lee to notify Davis on the 
 evening of that day that he shotild be obliged to 
 abandon his lines during the night and would 
 endeavor to reach Danville, North Carolina. 
 Davis anticipated him with military promptitude, 
 and succeeded in getting off with his personal 
 effects and the Confederate archives by the Dan- 
 ville Road. 
 
 Grant had ordered a general assault on the 
 interior Unes of Petersburg and Richmond early 
 on this morning of the 3d, but it was then dis- 
 covered that they had been evacuated during the 
 night. These places were immediately occupied 
 by our troops, and General Warren was assigned 
 to the command of the forces in and around 
 Petersburg and City Point. The order given by 
 Lee for the general retreat had been put into 
 execution early in the evening of the 2d; Long- 
 street and the troops that had been in our main 
 front, including also Gordon's Corps, had crossed 
 to the north side of the Appomattox, directing 
 their course towards Amelia Court House on the 
 Danville Railroad about equidistant from Rich- 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 197 
 
 mond and Petersburg. Those with whom we had 
 been principally engaged, Pickett's and Bushrod 
 Johnson's Divisions, with Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry, 
 moved up the south side of the Appomattox, 
 closely followed by us. The cavalry ahead were 
 pressing on the enemy's rear all day, and just at 
 dusk of the evening came upon a strong Une of 
 Lee's cavalry with Hunton's and Wise's infantry 
 brigades boldly confronting us at the crossing of 
 Deep Creek. The cavalry had forced them away 
 in a sharp engagement before we got up to share 
 in it. We cotild not help admiring the courage and 
 pluck of these poor fellows, now so broken and 
 hopeless, both for their cause and for them- 
 selves. A long and hard road was before them, 
 whatever fate should be at the end of it. We 
 had a certain pride in their manliness, and a 
 strong "fellow-feeling," however determined we 
 were to destroy the political pretension which they 
 had accepted as their cause. Before morning of 
 the 4th General Sheridan, learning that Lee was 
 trying to assemble his army near Amelia Court 
 House, ordered the Fifth Corps to make all dis- 
 patch for Jetersville, a point about eight miles 
 south of that place, to intercept Lee's communica- 
 tions by the Danville Road, while a column of our 
 cavalry was sent around to strike that road still 
 south of us and then move up to join us at Jeters- 
 ville. Here, after a brisk march, — ^thirty-five miles, 
 Sheridan says, — ^we arrived late in the day, and 
 before midnight the Fifth Corps was in line of 
 battle across the Danville Railroad, strongly 
 
198 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 entrenched, effectually cutting Lee's plans and 
 therefore in a position where we were pretty sure 
 to be ourselves attacked with desperation in the 
 morning, by Lee's whole army. This expectation 
 held us at high tension on the morning of the 5th, 
 waiting for the Army of the Potomac to come up 
 and secretly hoping in our interior confessionals 
 that Lee would also wait for them. 
 
 We had all expected a great battle at Jetersville. 
 A sonorous name is not necessary for a famous field. 
 And there was a little French flavor about this 
 name that might have brought liveher associations 
 than "jetsam," of which also there was plenty 
 before the week was over. Sheridan thought Lee 
 missed his great opportunity in not attacking us 
 here before any reinforcements got up. We shall 
 not censure Lee. If he had doubts about the issue 
 of a fight with the Fifth Corps we wUlingly accord 
 him the benefit of his doubt. It appears, however, 
 that Lee being informed by "Rooney" Lee, his 
 son, that Sheridan had a heavy force of infantry 
 here, gave up the attack and turned his columns 
 off by a more northerly route, sending his trains 
 by the best protected roads towards the Danville 
 communications. So narrow was our chance of 
 being confronted by Lee's whole army. And so 
 great was our satisfaction at Lee's opinion of the 
 Fifth Corps. 
 
 Chxr Second and Sixth Corps had been trying to 
 follow the Fifth all the morning of the 4th, but 
 had been stopped a long way back by one of those 
 common, and therefore presumably necessary, but 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 199 
 
 unspeakably vexatious, incidents of a forced 
 march, — somebody else cutting in on the road, 
 claiming to have the right of way. The cavalry 
 had come in on them from one of the river-cross- 
 ings where they had been heading off Lee from his 
 nearest road to Amelia Court House, and prece- 
 dence being given the cavalry in order, our infantry 
 corps had to mass up and wait till they could get 
 the road. The fields were in such condition that 
 troops could not march over them, and the roads 
 were not much better for the rear of a column, with 
 all its artillery and wagons. These delayed corps 
 were not allowed to get the rheumatism by resting 
 on the damp ground, but were favored with the 
 weU-proved prophylactic of lively work cordu- 
 roying roads, so that they could have something 
 substantial to set foot on. At half -past two in the 
 afternoon of the 5th, the advance of the Second 
 Corps began to arrive in rear of our anxious, 
 expectant, front-faced Hues, and form in upon our 
 left, soon followed by our Sixth Corps, which in 
 like manner formed upon oiu: right. It needs not 
 be told what kind of a greeting we gave each other 
 there. These corps, what had they not done since 
 they parted on the old Hnes a week before! That 
 Army of the Potomac together once again, at that 
 turning, burning point dividing the storied past 
 from the swift-coming end of its history. 
 
 At one o'clock that afternoon my command was 
 suddenly called out to support the cavahy, which 
 returning from a heavy reconnoissance had struck 
 one of the enemy's trains moving off on our left 
 
200 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 flank, and having captured i8o wagons and five 
 pieces of artillery, and destroyed the wagons, was 
 bringing in the artillery and a large number of 
 prisoners, and was severely attacked by a strong 
 body of cavalry and infantry, not far out from our 
 lines. This had made things lively for a time. We 
 had not much to do, however, when we got up to 
 them. Or perhaps that prolific and redundant 
 principle of ahticipation, by which a thing seems 
 so much better when you want it than when you 
 get it, and, vice versa, so much worse when you 
 fear it than when you front it, may have availed 
 here. The so-called moral effect of seeing and 
 knowing that our plodding infantry had covered 
 their tracks was perhaps stronger than we could 
 have made good if we had been more severely 
 tested in the flying fight. But our cavalry was a 
 queer sight. Before they had destroyed the 
 wagons, they had apparently had a custom-house 
 inspection, and confiscated many, various, and 
 marvelous "goods," — contraband, and some of 
 them contradictory, of war. It looked as if not 
 only the grocers and tinsmiths, but also the 
 jewelers and possibly the milliners, of Petersburg 
 and Richmond had been disappointed in a venture 
 they had hopefully consigned to southern ports. 
 It was almost provocative of levity, — quite "to the 
 prejudice of good order and military discipline, " — 
 to see our grave cavalry forming their flowing 
 lines of battle with silver coffee-pots and sugar- 
 bowls thumping at their saddle-straps, and when 
 they rallied in return to see their front fluttering 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 201 
 
 with domestic sjmnbols, and even "favors" of the 
 boudoir, as if a company of troubadoiirs had dis- 
 movinted a squadron of crusaders between Joppa 
 and Jerusalem. But it was with a joy deeper far 
 than merriment that I came in touch with our 
 splendid old First Maine Cavalry, famed for man- 
 hood and soldierhood then and ever since, with 
 Smith at their head straight and solid and lurnktotts 
 as a Hghthouse. 
 
 Sheridan, however, wished to move up and 
 attack Lee, even before the other corps got up to 
 us. Meade, having arrived in person in advance of 
 even the Second Corps, was unwilling to move out 
 without the other corps to attack Lee with forty 
 thousand men in hand and in position, — ^if the 
 reports which Sheridan relied upon were true. 
 This decision of Meade, Badeau says, was "much to 
 Sheridan's mortification." Still all he could do 
 about it was to "tell his father." He sent a 
 messenger to Grant sa3n[ng that it was of utmost 
 importance that Grant should come to him in 
 person. Meade had been very ill for the last two 
 days, — ^we cannot much wonder at that, — and 
 had asked Sheridan to put the Second Corps and 
 also the Sixth into position as he might desire, 
 while he retired for a little rest. Grant, coming 
 promptly up in the course of the night, held a 
 conference with Sheridan on the situation, and 
 especially, it now appears, on Meade's supposed or 
 imputed plan "of moving out to his right flank," 
 whatever that might be conjectured to mean, 
 "and giving Lee the coveted opportunity of escap- 
 
202 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ing us, and putting us in rear of him." Grant and 
 Sheridan then went, after midnight, to see Meade, 
 when General Grant says he "explained to Meade 
 that we did not want to follow the enemy, but to 
 get ahead of him, and that his (Meade's) orders 
 would allow the enemy to escape." It seems in- 
 credible that an officer of the position, experience, 
 and responsibility of General Meade could have 
 Hstened patiently to this imputation of ignorance 
 and stupidity. A movenlent to Meade's "right 
 flank, " as his army was faced, would have carried 
 him back to our old entrenched lines. It is absurd 
 to imagine Meade ever intended this undertaking. 
 And it may be questioned whether the movement 
 we did make under Sheridan's direction and 
 Grant's authority and orders for Meade to execute 
 did not immediately "put us in rear of Lee's army" 
 and keep us there until the long, hard circuit to 
 Appomattox Court House was run. 
 
 This kind of history makes it proper to look at 
 matters a little in detail. And for the first thing 
 as to the state of mind and purpose of General 
 Meade, against whom such belittling reference has 
 been made. 
 
 The last week's experiences had worked together 
 to make Meade in truth seriously ill. Still he held 
 up in spirit and body like a martyr. When Sheri- 
 dan with the Fifth Corps at Jetersville on the 5th 
 sent word to Meade asking for the other corps of 
 his army, Meade, lying on his rude couch scarcely 
 able to move, shows no lack of soldierly spirit or in- 
 deed of magnanimity. He dispatches Grant: "I 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 203 
 
 have ordered Humphreys to move out at all hazards 
 at 3 A.M. ; but if the rations can be issued to them 
 prior to that, to march as soon as issued; or if the 
 temper of the men, on hearing the dispatch of 
 General Sheridan communicated to them, leads 
 to the belief that they will march with spirit, then 
 to push on at once, as soon as they can be got under 
 arms." In his order then issued Meade says: 
 "The troops will be put in motion regardless of 
 every consideration but the one of ending the war. 
 . . . The Major-General commanding feels that 
 he has but to recall to the Army of the Potomac 
 the glorious record of its repeated and gallant 
 contests with the Army of Northern Virginia, and 
 when he asstires the army that in the opinion of so 
 distinguished an officer as Major-General Sheridan, 
 it only requires these sacrifices to bring this long 
 and desperate contest to a triumphant issue, the 
 men of this army will show that they are as willing 
 to die of fatigue and of starvation as they have 
 ever shown themselves ready to fall by the bullets 
 of the enemy." 
 
 This may not carry all the incitements of per- 
 suasive eloquence; but whatever concentric or 
 eccentric meanings it may bear, it is the testimony 
 of a high and heroic soul. He was the senior of 
 Sheridan in rank and service and in command, and 
 had now begun to comprehend the plans for 
 Sheridan in the coming campaign beyond the part 
 of commander of the cavalry forces. But he sends 
 him this word : "The Second and Sixth Corps shall 
 be with you as soon as possible. In the meantime 
 
204 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 your wishes or suggestions as to any movement 
 other than the simple one of overtaking you will be 
 promptly acceded to by me, regardless of any other 
 consideration than the vital one of destroying the 
 Army of Northern Virginia." Deep-drawn is this 
 simple language: deeplier significant the more one 
 ponders it. We have the high authority of General 
 Adam Badeau that "this is the sttiff of which 
 commanders are made." That is, — self-effacement 
 and renunciation at the behest of a rival! We are 
 not so sure about this definition of the proper 
 "stuff" for the composition of commanders; but 
 certainly this message is an almost sublime utter- 
 ance of a gentleman and a patriot, — an unselfish 
 and magnanimous man. To my mind, it seems like 
 the last words of an Algernon Sidney or a Montrose: 
 "The noblest place where man can die is where he 
 dies for man." 
 
 In this same spirit he rises from his couch of 
 suffering and passing his troops upon the road, 
 finds his Fifth Corps in advance of Sheridan's 
 cavalry, square across the Danville Railroad, 
 faced towards Lee's then approaching army, and 
 asks Sheridan to place the rest of the Army of the 
 Potomac, as it comes up, in such order of battle as 
 Sheridan may think proper, and trusting that all 
 will be done in the spirit that has animated his 
 whole movement thus far, asking only that this 
 overmarched advance shall not be hurled against 
 Lee's 'whole entrenched army before our main 
 body is all up, Meade sinks down to his couch for a 
 respite at least of mental suffering. Here he is 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 205 
 
 visited by Grant and Sheridan with the very dis- 
 tinct intimation that his plans are weak and silly, 
 and that Sheridan's plans would now be put into 
 execution. Then, to sleep, we may suppose. And 
 in that sleep what dreams might come, those who 
 watched his troubled rest spoke not what they 
 divined. For it needed not vision nor prophet, nor 
 Urim nor Thummim to read through the palpitat- 
 ing air that another sun had arisen. Samuel had 
 already anointed David and Saul could get no 
 answer from the Lord. It needed no far-sighted 
 glasses to see that Meade was no longer in reality 
 commander of the Army of the Potomac but only 
 the vanishing simulacrum of it. Was he dreaming 
 perchance of the affront offered him by the false 
 charge of an intended "right flank" movement 
 which would lead him past the enemy's rear? Or 
 lamenting in helpless agony the lost opportunity 
 of striking a decisive blow at Lee's last vital stand 
 had he not been sent off by Grant and Sheridan to 
 Amelia Court House whence Lee had already fled? 
 For it was well known to some whose business it 
 was to know, that Meade had planned to move in a 
 very different direction and on shorter lines on the 
 morning of April 6th, and strike Longstreet at 
 Rice's Station on the Lynchburg Road where there 
 is every reason to believe he would have brought 
 about the beginning of the end. Alas for Meade! 
 He never saw his army together again, — not even 
 in the grand review at Washington, — ^from which 
 time too he sunk from sight. 
 
 To return to our story it will be borne in mind 
 
2o6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 that the Fifth Corps and the cavalry held Jeters- 
 ville from the afternoon of the 4th of April to the 
 afternoon of the 5th, in the face of Lee's whole 
 army. But as things were before morning Sheridan 
 retvirris the Fifth Corps to the command of Meade, 
 an act which he states he "afterwards regretted" 
 — a conciliatory phrase which had become habitual. 
 Assured by him that Lee's army is at Amelia Court 
 House, Grant orders Meade to move out in that 
 direction in the order of battle in which his corps 
 were already formed, to attack the enemy in posi- 
 tion there, while Sheridan with the cavalry should 
 take the direction Meade had intended for his 
 army, — towards the Danville and Lynchburg road- 
 crossings. We had moved in this way five miles 
 of the eight, when Griffin learns that Lee's army is 
 not at Amelia Court House, having left there on the 
 evening before, and being now well on its way 
 around our left flank. Humphreys caught sight of 
 some of Lee's rear columns moving on a road about 
 iouT miles northwest of us, and immediately sent 
 out a detachment to cut them in two. It was no 
 part of Lee's plan to wait to be attacked by our 
 whole army, and on learning of our gathering at 
 Jetersville he began his retiring movement at eight 
 o'clock in the evening, sending his several corps by 
 all the roads leading in the desired direction, either 
 for Danville or for Lynchburg. So Meade was 
 actually sent out with the foregone certainty of 
 doing what he had no thought of doing, but was 
 charged with having contemplated, — ^letting Lee 
 pass him, and putting us in his rear. 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 207 
 
 Meade at once faces his army about and directs 
 his several corps by different roads to follow, out- 
 march, and intercept Lee's fljdng army. Griffin 
 is sent by the most northerly and roundabout way, 
 through PaineviUe (well-named), Ligontown, and 
 Sailor's Creek, — ^in doing this, observe, moved 
 from the extreme left to the extreme right of the 
 army. Humphreys moves on the left of the Fifth 
 Corps to Deatonsville, and thence towards Sailor's 
 Creek, while the Sixth Corps imder Wright moves 
 from Jetersville by the shortest roads to the same 
 rendezvous. Now began the terrible race and 
 running fights, swift, bold, and hard; both armies 
 about equally tasked and tried, and both driven 
 to the prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread." 
 
 We could not well tmderstand our being moved 
 by so roundabout a way to reach our destination. 
 It is explained, however, by a passage in General 
 Grant's Memoirs (vol. ii., p. 473), which consider- 
 ing the pressure upon time and strength and gener- 
 ous resolution falling upon our men, is remarkable 
 as showing what motives sometimes control mili- 
 tary movements. It is remarkable also in showing 
 what part General Meade had in commanding his 
 army corps. The passage reads : ' ' When the move 
 towards Amelia Court House had commenced that 
 morning, I ordered Wright's Corps, which was on 
 the extreme right, to be moved to the left, past the 
 whole army, to take the place of Griffin's, and 
 ordered the latter at the same time to move by, 
 and place itself on the right. The object of this 
 movement was," proceeds this naive narration. 
 
2o8 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 "to get the Sixth Corps, Wright's, next to the 
 cavahy, with which they had formerly served so 
 harmoniously and so efficiently in the valley of 
 Virginia. " 
 
 The Sixth Corps now remained with the cavalry 
 and under Sheridan's direct command, until after 
 the surrender. 
 
 This is in truth a gracious reference to the work 
 of the Sixth Corps before the onset of Early when 
 Wright had already made a stand and was turning 
 the tide backward as Sheridan came riding "from 
 Winchester twenty miles away." But the last 
 remark will provoke a smile. The wish was father 
 to the thought, no doubt; but the fact was a "bar 
 sinister." The Sixth Corps was under Sheridan's 
 direct command only in the one fight at Sailor's 
 Creek, and Sheridan did not get sight of it again, — ■ 
 not even in the grand review at the disbandment 
 of the armies. Moreover, for that one fight, 
 Sheridan complains that although Wright obeyed 
 his orders, he refused to make his report to him 
 until positively ordered to do so by the Lieutenant- 
 General himself. 
 
 Lee had got ahead of us; we were mortified at 
 that. But he found his way a "hard road to 
 travel." His hope was now to get to the Danville 
 junction at Burkesville, where he expected rations, 
 and possibly a clear road to Danville or Lynchbtirg. 
 So he pushes the heads of his flying columns along 
 the roads running between the Southside and the 
 Appomattox, a path traversed by many and diffi- 
 cult streams, only to find at every crossing some 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 209 
 
 hot vanguard of Sheridan or Hximphreys or Wright 
 or Griffin, or at last of Ord; and each time, too, 
 after fighting more or less severe to be beaten off 
 with ever new disaster, wasting powers, and 
 spreading demoralization. Yet stretching on with 
 ever increasing desperation. ... As one has 
 seen some poor worm upon the forestick, girdled 
 with fire, again and again attempt to cross the 
 deadly edge and recoil writhing from the touch; 
 wearing out his life in the frantic effort to save it; 
 his struggles the more frenzied and wild the less 
 his chances are — ^so now for these brave spirits 
 who held together for manhood's sake in the name 
 of what they already felt to be a doomed Con- 
 federacy. Virginia was but a prison-pen; the 
 Southside Raihoad was the dead-line; the river 
 the Lethean stream. There was blood at every 
 bridge and ford. Yet higher and higher up road 
 and river stretched the two armies; one with the 
 frenzy of a forlorn hope; the other with the energy 
 of fierce resolve. 
 
 Our privilege was to push things; and there was 
 no default of that. Owe advanced infantry corps 
 were operating with cavalry; which means doing 
 cavaky-work marching and infantry- work fighting. 
 And the example of the cavalry was superb. 
 
 For all our haste, we moved with caution; 
 skirmishers and flankers well out; every moment 
 looking for some hard-pressed rear-guard to turn 
 and give battle, to gain time for their crowding 
 columns ahead to pass some obstacle, or reach some 
 favorable ground for respite or defense. For the 
 14 
 
210 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 most part the road of our pursmt was hard and 
 smooth and clean; with no particular marks of 
 disorder save here and there a dead man by the 
 wayside, or an empty haversack which want had 
 made superfluous, or a musket which haste and 
 hopelessness had made too heavy. 
 
 Now we come to low ground where the ruts are 
 axle deep and the road strewn with wreckage: 
 broken-down forage trains, empty but unwieldy; 
 abandoned cannon and battery-wagons stuck fast 
 in the mire, — the trembling mules still harnessed 
 to the wreck; horses starved and overtasked, but 
 still saddled or packed, turned loose by their 
 masters, whose future interests so outweighed the 
 present that they couldn't stop to ride; queer 
 Virginia farm-carts, as queerly freighted, with 
 which some ignorant citizen was bearing oflf his 
 household gods, and goddesses as well, fleeing 
 before the Yankees with the full persuasion that 
 they were after them with hoofs and horns in the 
 likeness of their master, the evil one. ' 
 
 Now we come to the deep creek, where the 
 fugitives have destroyed the bridge behind them to 
 check our oncoming, but checking more effectually 
 their own followers; strewn, the stream, with 
 sunken and floating remnants of almost every 
 kind that man strives to put together and fate is 
 busy to take to pieces; betokening how many, 
 soldier and civilian, have reached the stream too 
 late for the bridge, and have attempted the danger- 
 ous ford; while crowding on the banks are still 
 
 ' 0/. R. R. xlvi., pp. 733-1102, Serial 97. 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 211 
 
 stranger vehicles and convoys; wild-looking men 
 in homespun gray, standing sulkily by, or speak- 
 ing only to insist that they are civilians and not 
 soldiers, — ^what they know of prison-pens not being 
 attractive, as compared with starving in the open 
 barrens; sometimes white men, or what seem to 
 be, declaring they are not white, but colored; — 
 a claim not often set up in that section of the 
 Republic, though there might be some truth in it 
 for all that; for there was in those days a whimsical 
 variance between law and fact, — ^between being 
 actually white and legally white, — as indeed under 
 all climes and constitutions one may be found 
 physically one color and morally the other. 
 
 But sometimes there was no mistake. For here 
 we have come upon a waif of the deluge, — a token 
 of the dispersion of peoples, the survival of the 
 fittest, the stock and cradle of a race. Moimted on 
 a pile of worldly goods that might have been 
 blown together by the four winds, or rolled up by 
 the waves of as many lost civilizations, crowded 
 into a vehicle till it was a vehicle no longer, as it 
 could neither carry nor go, sat supreme the irre- 
 pressible "man and brother" himself, sturounded 
 by his ebony tokens of the earth's replenish- 
 ment, — proof and promise of plenty, — cheerful, 
 hopeful, imperturbable, all of them alike, trust- 
 ing to luck as ever, for all it seemed rather against 
 them just then; bound for the promised land, and 
 piously waiting a special dispensation from heaven 
 in their behalf, some Moses hand that cleft the Red 
 Sea before the chosen. 
 
212 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Obstacles like these give check to the pursuit. 
 A bridge must be built that the ammunition wagons 
 may pass dry. Loiterers and impatient voyagers 
 are alike impressed for service. The pioneers 
 search shores and woods and hamlets for timber 
 and planks. The stalled forage wagons are 
 dragged in to form the temporary piers. The 
 mounted officers dash about to find a safe ford for 
 the men. The most intrepid of them follow breast- 
 deep, cartridge-boxes and haversacks borne upon 
 the bayonets high above their heads, to keep both 
 kinds of ammunition dry. Some enterprising 
 surgeon or meandering chaplain, thiiiking to do 
 better than the hard-headed i>l t ""-s or adventur- 
 ous orderlies for the men's welfare, duouts from the 
 middle of the stream above or below |hat he has 
 found the ford, and in the midst of his jubilation 
 suddenly sinks into an unforeseen hole, •Mr''^ftnce 
 after stirring variations from plain song to-mpid 
 minor and staccato, and splurges of diminuendo 
 and crescendo, he returns to the hither shore in 
 dismal cadence and saturated conviction. 
 
 Some men here, too, have their daintinesses as 
 well as those who are delicately apparelled and 
 live in kings' houses. It is hard to march in 
 gurgling shoes after wading neck-deep. They 
 wish to take off wet garments, assume the nether- 
 most Highland costume, or even to emulate the 
 Sandwich Island fellow-citizen in church array, 
 and then stop to dry and dress again on the other 
 side. But this dandjdsm cannot be indulged. 
 Time is an essential element of this contract. Not' 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 213 
 
 a moment must the pursuit lose its semblance of 
 forwardness if we mean to catch Lee's army. So 
 each superior takes his own style of persuasion 
 according to his conception of personal and official 
 dignity. The higher the rank, the loftier the style. 
 The corporals and sergeants coax; the captains 
 command; the colonels scold; the generals scowl; — 
 and several who appear to have conscientious 
 scruples against affirming, freely avail themselves 
 of that other alternative which the laws so chari- 
 tably provide. 
 
 But fairly over at last, instead of halting any- 
 where the column is pushed on at the "double 
 quick," to w^'"^i<dp for lost time. We climb the 
 way, the nafiow cut scarce wide enough for a 
 single traok', here again choked with abandoned 
 artillery &,nd entangled mules, whose strength 
 p«nflW:iabed after passing purgatory. The way is 
 li with new tokens of the painful ascent for 
 our leaders. Among these some quite ttnwelcome 
 waifs, such as loaded percussion shells jolted out of 
 the galloping chests, which for aught we know the 
 blow of a horse's hoof might explode in our faces; 
 gun-carriages and caissons set on fire by the 
 desperate fugitives, and when we pass them the 
 flames already within a foot of the fuses and 
 powder-bags. There is not much loitering about 
 that sort of a camp-fire. Better crunch the earth 
 with wet shoes for a good, dead pull than take the 
 chance of being hung tip to dry on a clay bank, or 
 aired on a tree-top. 
 
 Now we reach a spot where Sheridan had burst 
 
214 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 across the flying column and left a black and 
 withered track behind him like the lightning's path. 
 Otir orders are to destroy all military eqtiipage we 
 capture or overtake. The war had not ended then, 
 and military necessity was both lawful and expe- 
 dient rule. Such masses of war-material must not 
 be left unspoiled behind us, for aught we can fore- 
 see or foreordain by some chance of battle or of 
 movement to fall into the enemy's hands and serve 
 them against us again. War is destruction, — 
 word and deed. So we make wild bonfires of wagon 
 heaps and munitions, throw into the swamps and 
 streams what we dare not risk ourselves to add to 
 the lesser piles of ammunition capping the fire- 
 stacks, and chop and slash the wheel-spokes of the 
 gun carriages we cannot stop to burn. 
 
 Forward again! On a fresh track. Suddenly 
 the rattling musketry of the skirmishers ahead 
 tells that we have struck the enemy's rear-guard. 
 A bold battery of flying artillery runs up out of a 
 cross-road on a hillside half a mile away, and opens 
 back on the head of our column with case-shot and 
 shell. This offers variety, which is said to be the 
 spice of life, if spice is what we need. A regiment 
 is thrown forward into line at the double quick; a 
 brigade follows in column of support. There 
 comes a blast of canister, the answering swell of 
 musketry; this for a few minutes; then a wild shout 
 goes up into the rolling smoke ; the battery manages 
 to limber up and is off at a gallop, or sinks into 
 sudden silence with all around. We reach the 
 spot, and find our gallant fellows resting on their 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 215 
 
 line, with a goodly half -glad company of prisoners 
 in hand, and a patient group of the wounded of 
 both parties for the ambulances which come 
 galloping to the front, and alas, not without some 
 brave men, our brothers, born near or far, to be 
 buried here by the lonely wayside, lost but un- 
 forgotten! 
 
 We will look at these things with a more military 
 eye, and something more of detail. When Meade 
 had been sent off to Amelia Court House on the 
 morning of the 6th, Sheridan sent his cavalry in 
 the opposite direction, — ^the way Meade had in- 
 tended to go with his army, — ^towards Farmville, 
 where we had learned from intercepted dispatches 
 Lee expected to find rations for his famishing 
 troops. The cavalry soon got on the flank of Lee's 
 trains; however, they were well guarded, and our 
 forces were unable to inflict more injury than to 
 hold the enemy in check until the Second and Sixth 
 Corps, faced about and sent back by Meade, 
 should come up, to take their accustomed and 
 decisive share in the work. Barlow's Division of 
 the Second had been turned off to the right of the 
 road taken by his corps, towards that on which the 
 Fifth Corps was moving, and where the enemy was 
 expected to be encountered. But the enemy's 
 columns on this road had already passed in the 
 night, so that Barlow and the Fifth Corps had their 
 hard and eager march with no material effect upon 
 the enemy but that of capturing prisoners and 
 destroying overtaken material of war. The other 
 two divisions of the Second Corps took the road for 
 
2i6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Deatonsville towards Sailor's Creek and the Appo- 
 mattox, and soon fotind themselves in a running 
 fight with Gordon's Corps, which held the costly 
 honor of forming the rear-guard of Lee's main 
 army. Our troops had a very diffictdt country to 
 overcome, — ^broken, tangled, and full of swamps. 
 They had to cross streams by wading armpit 
 deep, and then push on to strike the flank or rear 
 of the sullen ranks. Meanwhile a portion of our 
 men were building bridges after Humphreys's rapid 
 fashion, for the passage of our artillery and am- 
 bulances. Thus we succeeded in keeping the 
 artillery up to the skirmish Hnes, and in carrying 
 the strong positions which the weU-handled enemy 
 had managed to entrench in their own rear-guard 
 style and efficiency. In this way Htimphreys 
 pushed them for more than sixteen miles, the 
 road much of the way strewn with wagons, camp 
 equipage, battery-forges, and limbers — a. stream of 
 wreckage. At Perkinson's Mills, near the mouth 
 of Sailor's Creek, Gordon made a definite stand, 
 with a weU-placed line of battle. But Humphreys' 
 splendid handling of his plucky men inspired them 
 to their best, and a sharp fight left the Second 
 Corps masters of the field, and of large numbers of 
 the enemy. This cost the corps 311 men killed and 
 wounded. The loss of the enemy was stiU greater. 
 The captures of the corps were thirteen battle-flags, 
 four cannon, and seventeen hundred prisoners. 
 After this defeat, Gordon pushed his retreat to 
 High Bridge, a crossing of the Appomattox five 
 miles below Farmville. 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 217 
 
 Meantime Ewell and. Anderson had been brought 
 to a stand by otir cavalry higher up Sailor's Creek, 
 three miles on Humphreys's left. It was our Sixth 
 Corps that now came upon them; the sharp issue 
 soon joined. This corps fought with all its old 
 hardihood, and our cavalry surpassed itself, riding 
 over the enemy's works, saber to bayonet. This 
 splendid courage and soldiership won commen- 
 surate results. General Ewell was compelled to 
 stirrender, and nearly all of his command, over 
 six thousand men, fell into our hands. Among 
 these were many distinguished generals, both of his 
 corps, and of Pickett's Division. 
 
 These were most brilliant victories for the 
 Second and Sixth Corps, and we of the Fifth were 
 proud of them, for they were oiu: own. We 
 expected this of Sheridan and the cavalry, but 
 were glad the old Army of the Potomac infantry 
 came in for an undeniable share of the soHd work as 
 well as of the glory. 
 
 There was some unaccountably poor generalship 
 that day in the Confederate army. Longstreet 
 held his troops all day at Rice's Station waiting 
 for Anderson and Ewell and Gordon to come up, 
 who had been held back to cover the trains. But 
 for all that, Lee lost his trains, and by reason of this 
 effort to save his trains he lost also a large part of 
 his army and his main chance of escape. General 
 Hvmiphreys in his admirable review of this day's 
 business, noting the fact that "Ewell's whole force 
 was lost, together with nearly half of Anderson's 
 and a large part of Gordon's, all in a useless effort 
 
2i8 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 to save the trains, " goes on to say in effect that if 
 Lee had abandoned all surplus artillery and camp 
 equipage and retained only his ammunition and 
 hospital wagons, and established temporary depots 
 of supplies at important railroad stations, he 
 might have been able to move rapidly enough to 
 make a successful junction with Johnson at Dan- 
 ville, or at least, to reach the motmtains of Lynch- 
 burg. 
 
 What would this have availed to the main issue? 
 Already the shadow of doom drew over the drifting 
 Confederacy. The hour of dehverance and dis- 
 persion was almost welcomed by its armies. And 
 it was reserved for Lee to be confronted by a man as 
 magnanimous as himself, and guided by a better 
 star. He had to go down, honored and beloved 
 indeed for the man he was, but the more lamented 
 for the unha,ppy choice he made when he cast in his 
 lot with those who forsook the old flag for a new 
 one, which did not recognize the fact that old 
 things had become new, — ^that even constitutions 
 move with the march of man, with wider interpreta- 
 tions and to their appointed goals, and that the 
 old flag borne forward by farther-seeing men held 
 its potency riot only in the history of the past but 
 for the story of the futiore. 
 
 General Ord with the Army of the James by 
 hard marches after splendid fighting in the old 
 lines had reached Burkesville on the evening of the 
 5th, and on the morning of the 6th was directed to 
 destroy the High Bridge and all other bridges 
 which might be used by Lee in the direction of 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 219 
 
 Danville or Lynchburg. This Ord proceeded to 
 do with promptitude and vigor. But not aware of 
 the proximity of the head of Lee's column, he sent 
 out only a small party for this purpose, which 
 after heroic and desperate fighting with Rosser's 
 and Munford's cavalry, and the loss of the gallant 
 General Reed and Colonel Washburn and many of 
 their command, were forced to surrender what 
 remained. 
 
 As for the Fifth Corps, we had made a day of it, 
 marching thirty-two miles, burning and destroying, 
 and bivouacked after dark in the vicinity of Sailor's 
 Creek on the Appomattox. We had encountered 
 only cavalry rear-guards and scouts, and had 
 captured much material of war and over three 
 hundred prisoners. We had many delays, bridge- 
 building and burning; but our step was quickened 
 by the roar of the Second and Sixth Corps battling 
 on our left, and by sight of the dense black smoke 
 that rose from the piles where our cavalry were 
 burning the wagon-trains they captured on the 
 roads to Farmville. Marvelous stories borne 
 through the air, of our cavalry darting everjrwhere 
 across the pathway of the fugitives, made good 
 cheer around the camp-fires when we cooked frugal 
 portions of precious coffee with cautious admixtures 
 of turbid and possibly more deeply stained waters 
 that came down to us from the ensanguined banks 
 of Sailor's Creek. 
 
 As soon as it was dark on the night of the 6th, 
 Longstreet pushed forward to Farmville, where his 
 men at last got a supply of rations. For two or 
 
220 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 three days past they had been living on parched 
 corn,— if they could stop to make a fire to parch it. 
 Longstreet did not tarry here; but on the morning 
 of the 7th he crossed the river, burning the bridges 
 behind him and moving out on the road to Lynch- 
 biirg, Gordon, with Johnson's and Mahone's Di- 
 visions following, crossed to the north side of the 
 Appomattox at High Bridge, five miles below 
 Farmville. Our Second Corps closely followed, 
 reaching the river just as the fugitives had blown up 
 the bridge-heads forming its southern defense, and 
 had set fire to the wagon bridge near by. Barlow 
 hurrying forward saved it, and thus secured the 
 passage of the Second Corps. Thereupon in the 
 belief that Longstreet was moving toward Danville, 
 he was sent up the river towards Farmville, and 
 had a sharp engagement with some of Gordon's 
 rear-guard on that road — ^while Humphreys with 
 the rest of his corps, pushing closely out on the 
 Lynchburg road, came suddenly on the enemy, 
 who had turned to give battle, and who opened 
 on him with sixteen pieces of artillery. He at 
 once informs General Meade that he has the 
 whole of Lee's remaining army in front of him, and 
 asks that our Sixth Corps shall attack from the 
 Farmville side while he takes the enemy in his 
 front. 
 
 In the meantime the Fifth Corps had moved 
 from Sailor's Creek at daylight, and at 9.50 had 
 arrived at High Bridge. A singular movement is 
 now put into effect, the purpose of which to ordi- 
 nary minds seems inscrutable. From the extreme 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 221 
 
 right where Grant had so carefully placed us in 
 order that the Sixth Corps might be next to Sheri- 
 dan, the Fifth Corps is now marched past the rear 
 of the Second and Sixth, — needing help as Hum- 
 phreys did, — and ordered to the "extreme left" 
 again, — ^which begins to seem our natural place 
 after the manner of the "opposition" in the French 
 Assembly. The queer thing about this is, that it 
 puts us again into immediate contiguity with 
 Sheridan and his cavalry, where General Grant 
 had led us to fear we were not "harmonious," as 
 the good Sixth Corps was. But we were not such 
 bad fellows after all. Having the last three days 
 proved our prowess in marching, we were assigned 
 the honor of making a cavalry-sweep around the 
 left flank and front of Lee's rushing army while our 
 Second and Sixth Corps did all they covild to drive 
 them beyond us. So by 7.30 that night we biv- 
 ouacked at Prince Edward's Court House, as far 
 south of the rest of otir army as we had been north 
 of it the day before. 
 
 Meantime Grant, now at Farmville, sends word 
 to Hvimphreys confronting Longstreet and Gordon 
 on the opposite side of the river, between High 
 Bridge and Farmville, that the Sixth and Twenty- 
 fourth Corps are at hand, and that "the enemy 
 cannot cross the river," — ^for what purpose it is 
 difficult to divine, as he had already crossed to the 
 north side and destroyed the bridges behind him, 
 and coiild not be suspected of cherishing a desire 
 to get back to the other side again at this juncture 
 of affairs. Crook's cavalry managed to wade the 
 
222 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 river and make a bold attack, but was repulsed 
 with loss, the gallant General Irvin Gregg being 
 rash enough to get into the enemy's Hnes, where he 
 was held as prisoner. 
 
 But it was the Sixth and Twenty-fourth Corps 
 that "could not cross," and so Hiimphreys stood 
 up there before Lee's army in a very perilous 
 position. It was like the situation of our First 
 Division sent across the Potomac at Shepardstown 
 Ford after the battle of Antietam, — Lee's army in 
 front of them, and a river behind them, perfectly 
 surrounded by the enemy. Had Lee but under- 
 stood Humphreys's situation, he rnight have de- 
 stroyed the Second Corps, if he struck quickly, 
 before the Fifth cotdd have got over the river at 
 High Bridge, and the Sixth and Twenty-fourth 
 could have come around from Farmville by that 
 long route. 
 
 Meade, indeed, had promptly ordered the Sixth 
 and also the Twenty-fourth Corps — ^the latter 
 being now by its proximity subject to his orders — 
 to cross and attack as Humphreys had requested, 
 on the enemy's right flank. Nobody at either 
 headquarters seems to have been aware that the 
 bridges at Farmville had been destroyed. So 
 Htimphreys, hearing the firing from Crook's attack, 
 and believing it was that of these two infantry 
 corps, made a bold stand and a bltoff fight (almost 
 in the slang sense of that term) all along the salient 
 points of the line, which had the important effect 
 of causing Lee to lose a day, which he could but 
 ill afford. For in the meantime the cavalry and 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 223 
 
 the Fifth Corps with Ord's advance were driving 
 with all their might to get across Lee's track. 
 
 Cotild our army that morning in easy reach of 
 High Bridge have been rapidly concentrated 
 according to Humphreys's earnest suggestion, and 
 Meade's intention, and a little more "dash" and 
 skillful engineering been put into exercise in the 
 crossing at Farmville, there can be no question but 
 that the Army of the Potomac would have "ended 
 matters there, before they went back. " 
 
 But perhaps Grant thought there had been 
 bloodshed enough, for that evening he writes a 
 note to Lee making this thought the basis for 
 asking the stirrender of Lee's army. At half -past 
 eight, this letter is sent by General Humphreys 
 through his picket line. An hour's truce was given 
 at this time to enable the enemy to gather up their 
 ■wounded Ijdng between the lines, which were only a 
 few hundred yards apart. Lee's answer comes 
 back within an hour, not offering to surrender but 
 asking the terms that wotild be given in such case. 
 In the course of the night, as might have been 
 anticipated, Lee retires, making all possible dis- 
 patch for Lynchbtirg, the Second Corps by daylight 
 in close ptirsuit, followed by the Sixth. We, of 
 cotirse, knew nothing of this at the time; but only 
 of what was going on in the road to Appomattox. 
 
 For our part, on the morning of the 8th the 
 Fifth Corps moved out at six o'clock, pressing with 
 all our powers to outflank Lee's march. This 
 morning I received a wholesome lesson of the 
 results of inattention. In crossing Buffalo River, 
 
224 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 my horse had a pardonable desire to take a drink, 
 I let him advance half his length into the water, 
 knee-deep or more, — ^which I thought enough; 
 but with that unaccountable instinct of a drinking 
 horse (or other fellow) to get further in, to "take 
 another, " my horse kept creeping forward, and I 
 was stupid enough to let him — ^until suddenly 
 stepping over a steep bank of the channel his 
 whole body was forced to follow, as also his master, 
 — or who should have been. Decidedly all was 
 not over, — ^mostly the reverse; two emergent 
 heads absurdly trying to look dignified marking 
 the vital center. We made for the nearest bank; 
 but could not effect a landing on account of the 
 extreme tendency of the earth and water there to 
 resume prehistoric conditions. The horse, not 
 being a saurian, could neither walk nor swim in 
 that mire. I had to act the part of a "lighter" and 
 the horse and I assumed more than original rela- 
 tions, — I being now the leader and something like 
 the bearer. I got out first, — shaving only two feet 
 to hold me fast. Then the dispensation of grace 
 took the place of natural law, and two or three of 
 my self-renouncing, now nearly sanctified, men 
 went to the rescue of the crestfallen but still 
 admired Charlemagne. What they had to do for 
 us both afterwards, official dignity prevents ex- 
 plaining. 
 
 This driving pursuit, this relentless "forward," 
 was altogether new experience for our much- 
 endtu-ing, much-abused old Army of the Potomac, 
 — so taunted with not moving, — ^urged "on to 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 225 
 
 Richmond" with the spur, but held to cover 
 Washington with the curb, hitherto forced by 
 something in the rear to stand still after our victo- 
 ries, and by something we did not understand to 
 draw back from some of our best-fought fields. 
 Yet it had been so managed that at the worst the 
 enemy seldom got sight of ovir backs. For our 
 part, wft had come off in good order from Bull Run 
 and Ffedericksburg in '62, and equally well from 
 Chancellorsville in '63, and from all the long series 
 of terrible drawn battles from the Rapidaa to the 
 James in '64. And we had many times seen the 
 rebel army retiring in good order from great dis- 
 aster; for Lee showed his best generalship in the 
 defensive, his best manhood and htimanity in 
 orderly retreat. But we had never seen anything 
 like this. Now we realized the effects of Grant's 
 permission to "push things," — some of these 
 things being ourselves. But the manifest results 
 on others helped our spirits to sustain the wear and 
 tear of body. The constantly diminishing ratio 
 of the strength of Lee's army compared with ours 
 made it clear that we should soon overcome that 
 resistance and relieve Virginia of the burden of 
 being the head of the Confederacy, and from that 
 must follow the downfall of the Confederacy 
 itself. 
 
 In this race, the 8th of April found the Fifth 
 Corps at Prospect Station on the Southside Rail- 
 road, nearly abreast of Lee's hunying column, ten 
 miles north of us at New Store, across the Appo- 
 mattox, — Meade with his two corps close upon his 
 
 IS 
 
226 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 rear. We had been now a week in hot pursuit, 
 fighting and marching by sharp turns, on a long 
 road. At noon of this day we halted to give oppor- 
 tunity for General Ord of the Army of the James 
 to have the advance of us upon the road. He had 
 come across from his successftd assault on the 
 center of the enemy's entrenchments before Peters- 
 burg to join our force and had with him the 'Twenty- 
 fourth Corps under General Gibbon and Bimey's 
 Division of the Twenty-fifth Colored troops, — 
 whom we had not seen in the field before. The 
 Fifth Corps was tinder Sheridan's immediate orders 
 but General Ord being the senior officer present 
 was by army regulations commander of our whole 
 flanking coliimn. He was very courteous to us all 
 and we greeted him heartily. The preference of his 
 corps to ours on the road was but natural consider- 
 ing his rank, and I am sure no one thought of 
 taking offense at it. But we could not resist the 
 thought that it was for some reasons other than 
 military that General Ord's command instead of 
 being directed upon Lee's rear by the shortest 
 course should be sent around to the extreme left to 
 co-operate with Sheridan, while the Army of the 
 Potomac was dismembered and divided right and 
 left, — -thus as we thought entailing much needless 
 hard marching when time and human strength 
 were prime elements of oiir problem; with the 
 reflection also that the breaking up of familiar 
 companionship was not good economy for a fight- 
 ing force. However, our duty was to obey orders 
 and keep our thoughts to otorselves. 
 
The Week of Flying Fights 227 
 
 These men of the Army of the James had been 
 doing splendid work, — ^especially in getting up to us. 
 But the hard march to overtake us had pretty 
 nearly used them up. A marching column under 
 such circumstances cannot help stretching. This 
 was the case before us now. When we pulled out 
 to follow their column we found it dragging and 
 lagging before us, the rear moving at a rate ever 
 slower than the head. This made it very hard on 
 our men. We had managed hitherto to keep in 
 pretty close touch with the cavalry; but this 
 constant checking up was a far worse trial. It 
 fretted our men almost to mutiny. Men who were 
 really "the best fellows in the world," as many a 
 girl had told them on fairer evenings, and who 
 wholly respected their officers and loved them, would 
 greet the luckless officers believed to be leading the 
 coliimn with very insubordinate and wholly im- 
 practicable advice as to the merits of this march, 
 and the duty of treating our men with some sense. 
 The head of our column seemed more like a mob 
 than our patient well-disciplined soldiers. The 
 headquarters wagons and pack mules which 
 made the btilk of that real rabble ahead got un- 
 ceremoniously helped along. Whoever blocked 
 the way was served with a writ of ejectment in 
 quite primitive fashion. After dark the belated 
 artillery obstructing the way was treated without 
 much reverence. Even the much sviffering horses 
 were held responsible, and prodded and belabored 
 by men who wanted to put two legs in the place of 
 fotu". The drivers defended their poor beasts by 
 
228 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 directing their whips against the assailants, whose 
 "high primed parry" with their muskets and 
 bayonets availed little against the lithe and cutting 
 lash. As little did the replications and rejoinders 
 settle the issue of justice in the all too "pending 
 case, " We tried to drown the tumiolt, if we could 
 not pacify the spirits of our exasperated men, by 
 bringing the bands to the head of the column to 
 administer the unction of the "Girl I left behind 
 me. " However, this seemed to make them want 
 to "get there" all the more. 
 
 Commanding officers cotild not exercise "dis- 
 cretion" about moving. We could not bring our 
 men to a halt when there was this kind of obstacle 
 before us, impassable as if it were a wall or a bog, 
 and let them rest tmtil the way could be cleared, 
 as wotild have been reasonable. For some roving 
 staff officer wotild happen along just then, and 
 without inqtiiring into the case, would report to 
 headquarters that such an officer was not moving 
 according to orders, but was absolutely halting 
 on the road. Then back would come an unjust 
 reprimand, or perhaps the stultification of an 
 "arrest," — of which there was qmte too much 
 already. So officers had to seem like incapables, 
 and the men, poor fellows, had to keep on their 
 feet, creeping at a snail's pace, or standing like 
 tripods, on two legs and a musket-butt; weighed 
 down with burdens of "heavy-marching order," 
 which the mere momentum of marching, the 
 'changing play of muscles, woiild have helped to 
 bear; all knowing ftill well that they would have 
 
ing and pushing night and day, fighting a little 
 now and then for the sake of that variety which is 
 the spice of life. Many of our big-hearted fellows 
 lost patience whose only disobedience of orders 
 was that they refused to die of fatigue and starva- 
 tion, as Meade had promised Sheridan they were 
 ready to do. 
 
 At last our lingering predecessors turn off. We 
 have the road and the mood to make the most of it. 
 We did not know that Grant had sent orders for the 
 Fifth Corps to march all night without halting; 
 but it was not necessary for us to know it. After 
 twenty-nine miles of this kind of marching, at the 
 blackest hour of night, human nature called a halt. 
 Dropping by the roadside, right and left, wet and 
 dry, down went the men as in a swoon. Officers 
 slid out of saddle, loosened the girth, slipped an 
 arm through a loop of bridle-rein, and sank to 
 sleep. Horses stood with drooping heads just 
 above their masters' faces. All dreaming, — one 
 knows not what, of past or coming, possible or 
 fated. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 APPOMATTOX 
 
 THE darkest hotars before the dawn of April 
 9, 1865, shrouded the Fifth Corps sunk 
 in feverish sleep by the roadside six miles 
 away from Appomattox Station on the Southside 
 Road. Scarcely is the first broken dream begun 
 when a cavalryman comes splashing down the road 
 and vigorously dismounts, pulling from his jacket- 
 front a crtimpled note. The sentinel standing 
 watch by his commander, worn in body but alert 
 in every sense, touches your shoulder. "Orders, 
 sir, I think." You rise on elbow, strike a match, 
 and with smarting, streaming eyes read the brief, 
 thrilling note, sent back by Sheridan to us infantry 
 commanders. Like this, as I remember: "I have 
 cut across the enemy at Appomattox Station, and 
 captured three of his trains. If you can possibly 
 push your infantry up here to-night, we ■mil have 
 great results in the morning." Ah, sleep no 
 more. The startling bugle notes ring out "The 
 General" — "To the march." Word is sent for 
 the men to take a bite of such as they have for 
 
 food: the promised rations will not be up till 
 
 230 
 
Appomattox 231 
 
 noon, and by that time we shall be perhaps too 
 far away for such greeting. A few try to eat, no 
 matter what. Meanwhile, almost with one foot 
 in the stirrup, you take from the hands of the black 
 boy a tin plate of nondescript food and a dipper of 
 miscalled coffee; — all equally black, like the night 
 around. You eat and drink at a swallow; mount, 
 and away to get to the head of the column before 
 you sotmd the "Forward." They are there — ^the 
 men: shivering to their senses as if risen out of the 
 earth, but something in them not of it. Now 
 sotinds the "Forward," for the last time in our 
 long-drawn strife. And they move — ^these men — 
 sleepless, supperless, breakfastless, sore-footed, 
 stiff-jointed, sense-benumbed, but with flushed 
 faces, pressing for the front. 
 
 By sunrise we have reached Appomattox Station, 
 where Sheridan has left the captured trains. A 
 staff officer is here to tiun us square to the right, to 
 the Appomattox River, cutting across Lee's re- 
 treat. Already we hear the sharp ring of the horse- 
 artiUery, answered ever and anon by heavier field 
 guns; and drawing nearer, the crack of cavalry 
 carbines; and unmistakably, too, the graver roir 
 •«of musketry of opposing infantry. There is no 
 mistake. Sheridan is square across the enemy's 
 front, and with that glorious cavalry alone is 
 holding at bay aU that is left of the proudest army 
 of the Confederacy. It has come at last, — ^the 
 supreme hour. No thought of human wants or 
 weakness now: all for the front; aU for the flag, 
 for the final stroke to make its meaning real — these 
 
232 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 men of the Potomac and the James, side by side, 
 at the double in time and column, now one and now 
 the other in the road or the fields beside. One 
 striking feature I can never forget, — Bimey's 
 black men abreast with us, pressing forward to 
 save the white man's country. 
 
 We did not know exactly what was going on. 
 We did know that otir cavalry had been doing 
 splendid work aU night, and in fact now was holding 
 at bay Lee's whole remaining army. I was proud 
 to learn that Smith's Brigade — our First Maine 
 Cavalry in the van — ^had waged the most critical 
 part of the glorious fight. 
 
 Ord's troops were in lead, pushing for the roar 
 of the guns to bring relief to our cavalry before 
 Lee's anxious infantry should break through. 
 The storm-center was now on the Lynchburg Pike, 
 a mile or so beyond Appomattox Court House. 
 The Fifth Corps followed, Ayres' Division ahead; 
 then our old Third Brigade of the First Division, — 
 once mine, since Bartlett's; next, my command, 
 my own brigade and Gregory's; at the rear of the 
 column Crawford's fine division, but somehow 
 unaccountably slow in its movements and march. 
 
 I was therefore in about the middle of our Fifth « 
 Corps column. The boom of the battle thickened 
 ahead of us. We were intent for the front. Sud- 
 denly I am accosted by a cavalry staff officer dash- 
 ing out of a rough wood road leading off to our 
 right. "General, you command this column?" — • 
 "Two brigades of it, sir; about half the First 
 Division, Fifth Corps." — "Sir, General Sheridan 
 
Appomattox 233 
 
 wishes you to break off from this column and come 
 to his support. The rebel infantry is pressing him 
 hard. Our men are falling back. Don't wait for 
 orders through the regular channels, but act on this 
 at once." 
 
 Of cotu"se I obey, without question. Sending 
 word forward to Griffin, in command of owe Fifth 
 Corps, that he may understand and instruct Craw- 
 ford to follow the main column and not me, I turn 
 off my brigade and Gregory's and guided by the 
 staff officer, push out to see if we can do as well on 
 a cavalry front as we had at their heels. My guide 
 informed me of the situation. Ord's troops were 
 holding Gordon's hard on the Lynchburg Pike; 
 this latter command was now a formidable force, 
 having taken in the heart of Stonewall Jackson's 
 and A. P. Hill's corps, and what was left of Ander- 
 son's. But the rear of this column pressing on had 
 made a demonstration indicating that they were 
 now about to try a final forlorn hope to cut through 
 near the Court House while the head of their column 
 was engaging Ord. General Sheridan, to thwart 
 this attempt, had taken Devins's Cavalry Division 
 back to meet them, at least until ovir infantry 
 could be brought up. The barrier of cavalry alone 
 could not withstand the desperate Confederate 
 veterans essaying their last hope, and in fact was 
 slowly receding. This explained the reason of our 
 summons. 
 
 Sharp work now. Pushing through the woods at 
 cavalry speed, we come out right upon Sheridan's 
 battle flag gleaming amidst the smoke of his bat- 
 
234 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 teries in the edge of the open field. Weird-looking 
 flag it is: fork-tailed, red and white, the two 
 bands that composed it each charged with a star of 
 the contrasting color; two eyes sternly glaring 
 through the cannon-cloud. Beneath it, that storm- 
 center spirit, that form of condensed energies, 
 mounted on the grim charger, Rienzi, that turned 
 the battle of the Shenandoah, — ^both, rider and 
 steed, of an utiearthly shade of darkness, terrible 
 to look upon, as if masking some unknown powers. 
 
 Right before us, our cavalry, Devins' division, 
 gallantly stemming the surges of the old Stone- 
 wall brigade, desperate to beat its way through. 
 I ride straight to Sheridan. A dark smile and 
 impetuous gesture are my only orders. Forward 
 into double lines of battle, past Sheridan, his guns, 
 his cavalry, and on for the quivering crest ! For a 
 moment it is a glorious sight: every arm of the 
 service in full play, — cavalry, artillery, infantry; 
 then a sudden shifting scene as the cavalry, dis- 
 engaged by successive squadrons, rally under their 
 bugle-calls with beautiful precision and prompti- 
 tude, and sweep like a storm-cloud beyond our 
 right to close in on the enemy's left and complete 
 the fateful envelopment. 
 
 Ord's troops are now square across the Lynch- 
 burg Pike. Ayres and Bartlett have joined them 
 on their right, and all are in for it sharp.. In 
 this new front we take up the battle. Gregory 
 follows in on my left. It is a formidable front we 
 make. The scene darkens. In a few minutes the 
 tide is turned; the incoming wave is at flood; the 
 
Appomattox 235 
 
 barrier recedes. In truth, the Stonewall men 
 hardly show their well-proved mettle. They seem 
 astonished to see before them these familiar flags 
 of their old antagonists; not having thought it 
 possible that we could match our cavalry and 
 march around and across their pressing columns. 
 
 Their last hope is gone, — to break through our 
 cavalry before our infantry can get up. Neither to 
 Danville nor to Lynchburg can they cut their way; 
 and close upon their rear, five miles away, are 
 pressing the Second and Sixth Corps of the Army 
 of the Potomac. It is the end! They are now 
 giving way, but keep good front, by force of old 
 habit. Halfway up the slope they make a stand, 
 with what perhaps they think a good omen, — 
 behind a stone wall. I try a little artillery on 
 them, which directs their thoughts towards the 
 crest behind them, and stiffen my lines for a rush, 
 anxious for that crest myself. My intensity may 
 have seemed like excitement. For Griffin comes 
 up, quizzing me in his queer way of hitting off our 
 weak points when we get a little too serious; accus- 
 ing me of mistaking a blooming .peach tree for a 
 rebel flag, where I was dropping a few shells into a 
 rallying crowd. I apologize — I was a little near- 
 sighted, and hadn't been experienced in long-range 
 fighting. But as for peaches, I was going to get 
 some if the pits didn't sit too hard on our stomachs. 
 
 In a few minutes Griffin rides up again, in quite 
 a different mood. " General, " he says, "I want you 
 to go back and bring t:p Crawford's Division. He 
 is acting in the same old fashion that got Warren 
 
236 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 into trouble at Five Porks. He should have been 
 up here long ago. We need him desperately. 
 He deserves to be relieved of his command." 
 — "General, do you mean to relieve me of mine, 
 and make me a staff officer? It can't come to 
 that." — "I mean to put you in command of that 
 division," he answers; "I will publish an order to 
 that effect. " — "General, pardon me, but you must 
 not do that. It would make trouble for everybody, 
 and I do not desire the position. It would make 
 great disturbance among Crawford's friends, and 
 if you will pardon the suggestion they may have 
 influence enough at Washington to block yotir 
 confirmation as Major-General. Besides, I think 
 General Baxter of the Third Division is my senior; 
 that must settle it." 
 
 This is a singular episode for such a moment. 
 But it may be cited as showing the variety of com- 
 motions that occupied our minds. 
 
 But now comes up Ord with a positive order: 
 "Don't expose your lines on that crest. The 
 enemy have massed their guns to give it a raking 
 fire the moment you set foot there." I thought I 
 saw a qualifying look as he turned away. But left 
 alone, youth struggled with prudence. My troops 
 were in a bad position down here. I did not like 
 to be "the under dog. " It was much better to be 
 on top and at least know what there was beyond. 
 So I thought of Grant and his permission to "push 
 things" when we got them going; and of Sheridan 
 and his last words as he rode away with his cavalry, 
 smiting his hands together — "Now smash 'em, 
 
Appomattox 237 
 
 I tell you ; smash 'em ! " So we took this for orders, 
 and on the crest we stood. One booming cannon- 
 shot passed close along our front, and in the next 
 moment all was still. , 
 
 We had done it, — ^had "exposed ourselves to the 
 view of the enemy. " But it was an exposure that 
 worked two ways. For there burst upon otir 
 vision a mighty scene, fit cadence of the story of 
 tumultuous years. Encompassed by the cordon 
 of steel that crowned the heights about the Court 
 House, on the slopes of the valley formed by the 
 sources of the Appomattox, lay the remnants of 
 that far-famed counterpart and companion of our 
 own in momentous history, — ^the Army of Northern 
 Virginia — Lee's army! 
 
 In the meantime Crawford's troops have begun 
 to arrive, and form in between Gregory and 
 Bartlett on our left. 
 
 It was hilly, broken ground, in effect a vast 
 amphitheater, stretching a mile perhaps from crest 
 to crest. On the several confronting slopes before 
 us dusky masses of infantry suddenly resting in 
 place; blocks of artillery, standing fast in colvimn 
 or mechanically swung into park; clouds of cavalry 
 small and great, slowly moving, in simple restless- 
 ness; — ^all without apparent attempt at offense or 
 defense, or even military order. 
 
 In the hollow is the Appomattox, — ^which we had 
 made the dead-line for our baffled foe, for its whole 
 length, a hundred miles; here but a rivulet that 
 might almost be stepped over dry-shod, and at the 
 road crossing not thought worth while to bridge. 
 
238 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Around its edges, now trodden to mire, swarms an 
 indescribable crowd: worn-out soldier struggling 
 to the front; demoralized citizen and denizen, 
 white, black, and all shades between, — ^foUowing 
 Lee's army, of flying before these suddenly con- 
 fronted terrible Yankees pictured to them as 
 demon-shaped and bent ; animals, too, of all forms 
 and grades; vehicles of every description and non- 
 description, — ^public and domestic, four-wheeled, 
 or two, or one, — Sheading and moving in every 
 direction, a swarming mass of chaotic confusion. > 
 
 All this within sight of every eye on our bristling 
 crest. Had one the heart to strike at beings so 
 helpless, the Appomattox would quickly become 
 a surpassing Red Sea horror. But the very spec- 
 tacle brings every foot to an instinctive halt. We 
 seem the possession of a dream. We are lost in a 
 vision of human tragedy. But our light-twelve Na- 
 poleon guns come rattling up behind us to go into 
 battery; we catch the glitter of the cavalry blades 
 and brasses beneath the oak groves away to our 
 right, and the ominous closing in on the fated foe. 
 
 So with a fervor of devout joy, — as when, per- 
 haps, the old crusaders first caught sight of the 
 holy city of their quest, — with an up-going of the 
 heart that was half psan, half prayer, we dash 
 forward to the consummation. A solitary field- 
 piece in the edge of the town gives an angry but 
 expiring defiance. We press down a little slope, 
 through a swamp, over a bright swift stream. 
 Our advance is already in the town, — only the 
 narrow street between the opposing lines, and 
 
Appomattox 239 
 
 hardly that. There is wild work, that looks like 
 fighting; but not much killing, nor even hurting. 
 The disheartened enemy take it easy; our men 
 take them easier. It is a wild, mild fusing, — earn- 
 est, but not deadly earnest. 
 
 A young orderly of mine, unable to contain 
 himself, begs permission to go forward, and dashes 
 in, sword-flourishing as if he were a terrible fellow, 
 — and soon comes back, hugging fotir sabers to his 
 breast, speechless at his achievement. 
 
 We were advancing, tactically fighting, and I 
 was somewhat uncertain as to how much more of 
 the strenuous should be required or expected. But 
 I could not ^ve over to this weak mood. 
 
 My right was "in the air," advanced, unsup- 
 ported, towards the enemy's general line, exposed 
 to flank attack by troops I could see in the distance 
 across the stream. I held myself on that extreme 
 flank, where I could see the cavalry which we had 
 relieved, now forming in column of squadrons 
 ready for a dash to the front, and I was anxiously 
 hoping it would save us from the flank attack. 
 Watching intently, my eye was caught by the 
 figure of a horseman riding out between those lines, 
 soon joined by another, and taking a direction 
 across the cavalry front towards our position. 
 They were nearly a mile away, and I curiously 
 watched them tiU lost from sight in the nearer 
 broken ground and copses between.. 
 
 Suddenly rose to sight another form, close in our 
 own front, — a soldierly young figure, a Confeder- 
 ate staff officer imdoubtedly. Now I see the white 
 
240 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 flag earnestly borne, and its possible purport 
 sweeps before my inner vision like a wraith of 
 morning mist. He comes steadily on, the mys- 
 terious form in gray, my mood so whimsically 
 sensitive that I could even smile at the material of 
 the flag, — ^wondering where in either army was 
 found a towel, and one so white. But it bore a 
 mighty message, — ^that simple emblem of homely 
 service, wafted hitherward above the dark and 
 crimsoned streams that never can wash themselves 
 away. 
 
 The messenger draws near, dismounts; with 
 graceful salutation and hardly suppressed emotion 
 delivers his message: "Sir, I am from General 
 Gordon. General Lee desires a cessation of hostili- 
 ties until he can hear from General Grant as to the 
 proposed surrender. " 
 
 What word is this! so long so dearly fought for, 
 so feverishly dreamed, but ever snatched away, 
 held hidden and aloof; now smiting the senses with 
 a dizzy flash! "Surrender"? We had no rumor 
 of this from the messages that had been passing 
 between Grant and Lee, for now these two days, 
 behind us. "Stirrender"? It takes a moment to 
 gather one's speech. "Sir," I answer, "that 
 matter exceeds my authority. I will send to my 
 superior. General Lee is right. He can do no 
 more. " All this with a forced calnmess, covering 
 a tumult of heart and brain. I bid him wait a 
 while, an(^ the message goes up to my corps com- 
 mander, General Griffin, leaving me mazed at the 
 boding change. 
 
Appomattox 241 
 
 Now from the right come ||)aming up in cavalry 
 fashion the two forms I had watched from away 
 beyond. A white flag again, held strong aloft, 
 making straight for the little group beneath our 
 battle-flag, high borne als% — ^the red Maltese cross 
 on a field of white, that had thrilled hearts long ago. 
 I see now that it is one of our cavalry staff in 
 lead, — indeed I recognize him. Colonel Whitaker 
 of Custer's staff; and, hardly keeping pace with 
 him, a Confederate staff officer. Without dis- 
 mounting, without salutation, the cavalryman 
 shouts: "This is unconditional surrender! This is 
 the end!" Then he hastily introduces his com- 
 panion, and adds: "I am just from Gordon and 
 Longstreet. Gordon says 'For God's sake, stop 
 this infantry, or hell will be to pay!' I'll go to 
 Sheridan," he adds, and dashes away with the 
 white flag, leaving Longstreet's aide with me.' 
 
 I was doubtful of my duty. The flag of truce 
 was in, but I had no right to act upon it without 
 orders. There was still some firing from various 
 quarters, lulling a little where the white flag passed 
 near. But I did not press things quite so hard. 
 Just then a last cannon-shot from the edge of the 
 
 ' The various accounts that have been since given of the reception of 
 the flag of truce on this occasion might lead to the impression upon 
 readers of history that we were all under great agitation of mind and 
 that our memories were somewhat confused or possibly our habit of- 
 truth teUing. But those who were acquainted with the facts will not be 
 disturbed in their inferences or judgments. In accordance with Lee's 
 instructions several flags were sent out at important points along his 
 own line, and several came in on our Appomattox front. The flag- 
 bearers I refer to were Capt. P. M. Jones, now U. S. District Judge in 
 Alabama, and Capt. Brown of Georgia. 
 
 16 
 
242 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 town plunges through the breast of a gallant and 
 dear young ofiEicer in my front line, — Lieutenant 
 Clark, of the 185th New York, — ^the last man killed 
 in the Army of the Potomac, if not the last in the 
 Appomattox lines.' Not a strange thing for war, — 
 this swift stroke of the mortal; but coming after 
 the truce was in, it seemed a cruel fate for one so 
 deserving to share his country's joy, and a sad 
 peace-offering for us all. 
 
 Shortly comes the order, in due form, to cease 
 firing and to halt. There was not much firing to 
 cease from; but "halt," then and there? It is 
 beyond htiman power to stop the men, whose one 
 word and thought and action through crimsoned 
 years had been but forward. They had seen the 
 flag of truce, and cotild divine its outcome. 3ut 
 the habit was too strong; they cared not for points 
 of direction, it was forward still, — ^forward to the 
 end; forward to the new beginning; forward to 
 the Nation's second birth! 
 
 But it struck them also in a quite human way. 
 The more the captains cry, "Halt! the rebels 
 want to surrender, " the more the men want to be 
 there and see it. StUl to the front, where the real 
 fun is! And the forward movement takes an up- 
 ward turn. For when we do succeed in stopping 
 
 ' It has been claimed that the last man killed in the Appomattox 
 lines belonged to the Army of the James. That may p_pssibly be so, 
 as the reception of flags began on our right, and probably did not reach 
 the extreme left where the Army of the James was until some time after. 
 So there may have been some firing and casualties after the truce had 
 been received on our right. The honor of this last death is not a proper 
 subject of quarrel. 
 
Appomattox 243 
 
 their advance we cannot keep their arms and legs 
 from flying. To the top of fences, and haystacks, 
 and chimneys they clamber, to toss their old caps 
 higher in the air, and leave the earth as far below 
 them as they can. 
 
 Dear old General Gregory gallops up to in- 
 quire the meaning of this strange departtire from 
 accustomed discipline. "Only that Lee wants 
 time to surrender, " I answer with stage solemnity. 
 "Glory t'o God!" roars the grave and brave old 
 General, dashing upon me with an impetuosity that 
 nearly unhorsed us both, to grasp and wring my 
 hand, which had not yet had time to lower the 
 sword. "Yes, and on earth peace, good will to- 
 wards men, " I answered, bringing the thanksgiving 
 from heavenward, manward. 
 
 "Your legs have done it, my men," shouts the 
 gallant, gray-haired Ord, galloping up cap in hand, 
 generously forgiving our disobedience of orders, 
 and rash. ."exposure" on the dubious crest. True 
 enough, their legs had done it, — ^had "matched the 
 cavalry" as Grant admitted, had cut around Lee's 
 best doings, and commanded the grand halt. But 
 other things too had "done it"; the blood was still 
 fresh upon the Quaker Road, the White Oak Ridge, 
 Five Porks, Farmville, High Bridge, and Sailor's 
 Creek; and we take somewhat gravely this com- 
 pliment of our new commander, of the Army of the 
 James. At last, after "pardoning something to 
 the spirit of liberty," we get things "quiet along 
 the lines. " 
 
 A truce is agreed upon until one o'clock — ^it is 
 
244 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 now ten. A conference is to be held, or rather 
 colloquy, for no one here is authorized to say any- 
 thing about the terms of surrender. Six or eight 
 officers from each side meet between the lines, 
 near the Coiirt House, waiting Lee's answer to 
 Grant's summons to surrender. There is lively 
 chat here on this unaccustomed opportunity for 
 exchange of notes and queries. 
 
 The first greetings are not all so dramatic as 
 might be thought, for so grave an occasion. "Well 
 BUly, old boy, how goes it?" asks one loyal West 
 Pointer of a classmate he had been fighting for 
 four years. "Bad, bad, Charlie, bad I tell you; 
 but have you got any whisky? " was the response, — 
 not poetic, not idealistic, but historic; founded on 
 fact as to the strength of the demand, but without 
 evidence of the questionable maxim that the de- 
 mand creates the supply. More of the economic 
 truth was manifest that scarcity enhances value. 
 
 Everybody seems acquiescent and for the 
 moment cheerful, — except Sheridan. He does not 
 like the cessation of hostilities, and does not con- 
 ceal his opinion. His natural disposition was not 
 sweetened by the circumstance that he was fired 
 on by some of the Confederates as he was coming 
 up to the meeting under the truce. He is for 
 unconditional surrender, and thinks we should 
 have banged right on and settled all questions 
 without asking them. He strongly intimates that 
 some of the free-thinking rebel cavalry might take 
 advantage of the truce to get away from us. But 
 the Confederate officers, one and all, Gordon, 
 
Appomattox 245 
 
 Wilcox, Heth, "Rooney" Lee, and all the rest, 
 assure him of their good faith, and that the game 
 is up for them. 
 
 But suddenly a sharp firing cuts the air about our 
 ears — ^musketry and artillery — out beyond us on 
 the Lynchbvu-g pike, where it seems Sheridan had 
 sent Gregg's command to stop any free-riding 
 pranks that might be played. Gordon springs up 
 from his pile of rails with an air of astonishment 
 and vexation, declaring that for his part he had 
 sent out in good faith orders to hold things as they 
 are. And he glances more than inquiringly at 
 Sheridan, "Oh, never mind!" says Sheridan, "I 
 know about it. Let 'em fight!" with two simple 
 words added, which, literally taken, are supposed 
 to express a condemnatory judgment, but in Sheri- 
 dan's rhetoric convey his appreciation of highly 
 satisfactory qualities of his men, — especially just 
 now. 
 
 One o'clock comes; no answer from Lee. Noth- 
 ing for us but to shake hands and take arms to 
 resume hostilities. As I turned to go, General 
 Griffin said to me in a low voice, " Prepare to make, 
 or receive, an attack in ten minutes!" It was a 
 sudden change of tone in our relations, and brought 
 a queer sensation. Where my troops had halted, 
 the opposing lines were in close proximity. The 
 men had stacked arms and were resting in place. 
 It did not seem like war we were to recommence, 
 but wilful murder. But the order was only to 
 "prepare," and that we did. Our troops were in 
 good position, my advanced line across the road. 
 
246 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 and we stood fast intensely waiting. I had mounted, 
 and sat looking at the scene before me, thinking of 
 all that was impending and depending, when I felt 
 coming in upon me a strange sense of some presence 
 invisible but powerful — ^like those unearthly visit- 
 ants told of in ancient story, charged with supernal 
 message. Disquieted, I turned about, and there 
 behind me, riding in between my two lines, ap- 
 peared a commanding form, superbly mounted, 
 richly accoutred, of imposing bearing, noble coun- 
 tenance, with expression of deep sadness over- 
 mastered by deeper strength. It is no other than 
 Robert E. Lee! And seen by me for the first time 
 within my own lines. I sat immovable, with a 
 certain awe and admiration. He was coming, with 
 a single staff officer,' for the great appointed meet- 
 ing which was to determine momentous issues. 
 
 Not long after, by another inleading road, ap- 
 peared another form, plain, unassuming, simple, 
 and familiar to our eyes, but to the thought as 
 much inspiring awe as Lee in his splendor and his 
 sadness. It is Grant! He, too, comes with a 
 single aide, a staff officer of Sheridan's who had 
 come out to meet him." Slouched hat without 
 cord; common soldier's blouse, unbuttoned, on 
 which, however, the four stars; high boots, mud- 
 splashed to the top; trousers tucked inside; no 
 sword, but the sword-hand deep in the pocket; 
 sitting his saddle with the ease of a born master, 
 taking no notice of anything, all his faculties 
 gathered into intense thought and mighty calm. 
 
 ' Colonel Marshall, chief of staff. » Colonel Newhall. 
 
Appomattox 247 
 
 He seemed greater than I had ever seen him,^a 
 look as of another world about him. No wonder 
 I forgot altogether to salute him. Anything like 
 that would have been too little. 
 
 He rode on to meet Lee at the Court House. 
 What momentous issues had these two souls to 
 declare! Neither of them, in truth, free, nor held 
 in individual bounds alone; no longer testing each 
 other's powers and resources, no longer weighing 
 the chances of daring or desperate Conflict. In- 
 struments of God's hands, they were now to record 
 His decree! 
 
 But the final word is not long coming now. 
 Staff officers are flying, crying "Lee surrenders!" 
 Ah, there was some kind of strength left among 
 those worn and famished men belting the hills 
 aroimd the springs of the Appomattox, who rent 
 the air with shouting and uproar, as if earth and 
 sea had joined the song! Our men did what they 
 thought their share, and then went to sleep, as 
 they had need to do ; but in the opposite camp they 
 acted as if they had got hold of something too good 
 to keep, and gave it to the stars. 
 
 Besides, they had a supper that night, which 
 was something of a novelty. For we had divided 
 rations with our old antagonists now that they 
 were by our side as suffering brothers. In truth, 
 Longstreet had come over to our camp that evening 
 with an tmwonted moisture on his martial cheek 
 and compressed words on his lips: "Gentlemen, 
 I must speak plainly; we are starving over there. 
 For God's sake! can you send us something?" 
 
248 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 We were men; and we acted like men, knowing we 
 shotild sufifer for it ourselves. We were too short- 
 rationed also, and had been for days, and must be 
 for days to come. But we forgot AndersonvUle 
 and Belle Isle that night, and sent over to that 
 starving camp share and share alike for all there; 
 nor thinking the merits of the case diminished by 
 the circumstance that part of these provisions was 
 what Sheridan had captured from their trains the 
 night before. 
 
 Generals Gibbon, Griffin, and Merritt were 
 appointed commissioners to arrange the details of 
 the surrender, and orders were issued in both 
 armies that all officers and men should remain with- 
 in the limits of their encampment. 
 
 Late that night I was summoned to headquarters, 
 where General Griffin informed me that I was 
 to command the parade on the occasion of the 
 formal surrender of the arms and colors of Lee's 
 army. He said the Confederates had begged hard 
 to be allowed to stack their arms on the ground 
 where they were, and let us go and pick them up 
 after they had gone; but that Grant did not think 
 this qmte respectful enough to anybody, including 
 the United States of America; and while he would 
 have all private property respected, and would 
 permit officers to retain their side-arms, he insisted 
 that the surrendering army as such should march 
 out in due order, and lay down all tokens of Con- 
 federate authority and organized hostihty to the 
 United States, in immediate presence of some 
 representative portion of the Union Army. Griffin 
 
Appomattox 249 
 
 added in a significant tone that Grant wished the 
 ceremony to be as simple as possible, and that 
 nothing should be done to humiliate the manhood 
 of the Southern soldiers. 
 
 I appreciated the honor of this appointment, 
 although I did not take it much to myself. There 
 were other things to think of. I only asked 
 General Griffin to give me again my old Third 
 Brigade, which I had commanded after Gettysbtirg, 
 and with which I had been closely associated in 
 the great battles of the first two years. Not for 
 private reasons, however, was this request made, 
 but because this was to be a crowning incident of 
 history, and I thought these veterans deserved this 
 recognition. I was therefore transferred from the 
 First Brigade, of which I had been so proud, to 
 the Third, representing the veterans of the Fifth 
 Corps. The soul-drawing bugle-call ' ' Lights Out ! ' ' 
 did not mean darkness and silence that momentous 
 evening; far into the night gleamed some irrepres- 
 sible camp fire and echoed the irrepressible cheer in 
 which men voiced their deepest thought, — ^how 
 different for each, no other knows! 
 
 At last we sleep — ^those who can. And so 
 ended that 9th of April, 1865 — ^Palm Sunday, — ^in 
 that obscure little Virginia village now blazoned 
 for immortal fame. Graver destinies were deter- 
 mined on that humble field than on many of classic 
 and poetic fame. And though the issue brought 
 bitterness to some, yet the heart of humanity the 
 world over thrilled at the tidings. To us, I know, 
 who there fell asleep that night, amidst memories of 
 
250 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 things that never can be told, it came like that 
 Palm Sunday of old, when the rejoicing miiltitude 
 met the meekly riding King, and cried: "Peace in 
 Heaven; glory in the highest. " 
 
 Morning dawned; and then, in spite of all 
 attempts to restrain it, came the visiting and sight- 
 seeing. Our camp was full of callers before we were 
 up. They stood over our very heads now, — ^the 
 men whose movements we used to study through 
 field-glasses, or see close at hand framed in fire. 
 We woke, and by force of habit started at the 
 vision. But our resolute and much-enduring old 
 antagonists were qtiick to change their mood when 
 touched by appealing sentiment; they used their 
 first vacation to come over and see what we were 
 really made of, and what we had left for trade. 
 Food was what was most needed ; but was precisely 
 what we also most lacked. Such as we parted with 
 was not for sale, or barter; this went for " old 
 times" — old comradeship across the lines. But 
 tobacco, pipes, knives, money — or sjmibols of it, 
 — shoes, — ^more precious still; and among the staff, 
 even saddles, now and then, and other more trivial 
 things that might serve as souvenirs, made an 
 exchange about as brisk as the bullets had done a 
 few days ago. The inundation of visitors grew 
 so that it looked like a country fair, including the 
 cattle-show. This exhibit broke up the order of the 
 camp; and the authorities in charge had to inter- 
 pose and forbid all visiting. All this day and part 
 of the next our commissioners were busy arranging 
 for the reception and transportation of surrendered 
 
Appomattox 251 
 
 property and the preparation of parole lists for the 
 surrendering men. It was agreed that officers 
 should sign paroles for their commands. But it 
 took work and time to get the muster rolls in 
 shape, not for "red tape" reasons, but for clear 
 and explicit personal and public record. On our 
 part most of us had time to think, — ^looking back- 
 ward, and also forward. 
 
 Most of all, we missed our companions of the 
 Second and Sixth Corps. They were only three 
 miles away and were under orders to move back 
 at once to Btirkeville. It seemed strange to us 
 that these two corps should not be allowed that 
 little three-mile march more, to be participants of 
 this consummation to which they perhaps more 
 than any had contributed. Many a longer detour 
 had they made for less cause and less good. 
 
 But whatever of honor or privilege came to us of 
 the Fifth Corps was accepted not as for any pre- 
 eminent work or worth of ours, but in the name 
 of the whole noble Army of the Potomac; with 
 loving remembrance of every man, whether on 
 horse or foot or cannon-caisson, whether with 
 shoulder-strap of office or with knapsack, — of every 
 man, whether his heart beat high with the joy of 
 this hour, or was long since stilled in the shallow 
 trenches that furrow the red earth from the An- 
 tietam to the Appomattox! 
 
 It may help to a connected understanding of 
 these closing scenes, if we glance at the movements 
 of that close-pressing column for a day or two 
 before. On the evening of the 7th, General Grant 
 
252 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 had written General Lee a letter from Farmville, 
 and sent it through General Humphreys' Unes, 
 asking Lee to surrender his army. Lee answered 
 at once declining to surrender, but asking the 
 terms Grant would ofEer. The purstiit being 
 resumed on the morning of the 8th, Grant wrote 
 to Lee a second letter, delivered through Hum- 
 phreys' skirmish line and Fitzhugh Lee's rear-guard, 
 proposing to meet him for the purpose of arranging 
 terms of surrender. To this Lee replied that he 
 had not intended to propose actual surrender, but 
 to negotiate for peace, and to ask General Grant 
 what terms he would offer on that basis; proposing 
 a meeting at lo o'clock on the morning of the 9th 
 between the picket Unes, for discussion of this 
 question. Grant answered declining the appoint- 
 ment for this purpose, saying in effect that the 
 only way to secure peace is for the South to lay 
 down their arms. 
 
 General Grant must have felt that the end was 
 fast coming, even without negotiations; and he 
 seems quite earnest to impress this upon General 
 Lee. For, after all the solicitude about sparing 
 further bloodshed, he in no wise permits his pur- 
 suing columns to remit their activity. The natural 
 result of this must be a battle, a destructive and de- 
 cisive one. Indeed, in the present situation of our 
 Second and Sixth Corps, this battle is imminent. 
 Still, at this very juncture, — Lee being now in his 
 immediate presence, so to speak, close upon Hum- 
 phreys' skirmish Une, — for reasons which he has 
 not made fully apparent but which we of the White 
 
Appomattox 253 
 
 Oak Road could without difficulty surmise, General 
 Grant deems it proper to transfer his own personal 
 presence, as he says, "to the head of the column, " 
 or, as Badeau puts it, "to join Sheridan's column." 
 This was now fighting Gordon's command and 
 Lee's cavalry at Appomattox Court House. Ac- 
 cordingly, General Grant, having sent this sugges- 
 tive answer to General Lee, took a road leading 
 south from a point a mile west of New Store, for a 
 good twenty-mile ride over to Sheridan, leaving 
 great responsibility on Humphreys and Wright. 
 Lee was repeatedly sending word to Humphreys 
 asking for a truce pending consideration of pro- 
 posals for surrender. Humphreys answered that 
 he had no authority to consent to this, but, on the 
 contrary, must press him to the utmost; and at 
 last, in answer to Lee's tirgency, he even had to 
 warn General Lee that he must retire from a posi- 
 tion he was occupying somewhat too trustingly on 
 the road not a htmdred yards from the head of the 
 Second Corps column. Lee's reason undoubtedly 
 was that he was expecting the meeting with Grant 
 which he had asked for between the skirmish lines 
 at ten o'clock. Half an hour after the incident, 
 and half a mile beyond this place, the Second Corps 
 came up to Longstreet's entrenched lines three 
 miles northeast of Appomattox Court House; 
 and the Sixth Corps closely following, dispositions 
 were made for instant attack. At this moment 
 General Meade arrives on the ground, and the 
 attack is suspended. For Lee in the meantime has 
 sent a further letter through Humphreys to Grant, 
 
254 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 asking an interview on the basis of Grant's last 
 letter, and Meade reading this, at once grants a 
 truce of an hour on his own hnes, awaiting the 
 response from Grant. But Grant had already left 
 that front. Had he been here, matters could have 
 been quickly settled. A staff officer is sent to 
 overtake General Grant, and at noon, half-way 
 on his journey, the General sends back answer to 
 Lee that he is pushing forward "to the front" for 
 the purpose of meeting him, with the very queer 
 advice that word may be sent to him on the road 
 he is now on, at what point General Lee wishes the 
 meeting to be — that is, by a messenger out-gal- 
 loping Grant. There is not much choice for Lee 
 now. Grant being on so long a road and at such 
 distance irom 'both of the two "columns," com- 
 munication with him is for a time impracticable. 
 In consequence of this necessary delay, Lee sent a 
 flag of truce both to Meade in his rear and to 
 Sheridan in his front, to ask for a suspension of 
 hostilities until he could somewhere meet General 
 Grant, and himself took the shortest road for 
 Appomattox Court House. 
 
 To resume my point of time and place, I was 
 most of this day and the next adjusting relations 
 in my changing commands, and with a part of my 
 men, in picking up abandoned guns and munitions 
 of value along the track of the Confederate march. 
 I also had some thoughts which, as this is a per- 
 sonal narrative, it may be permitted to recall. 
 For those who choose, the passage may be passed 
 by. Some people have naturally asked me if I 
 
Appomattox 255 
 
 knew why I was designated to command the 
 parade at the formal surrender. The same query- 
 came to my mind during the reflections of this day. 
 I did not know or presume to ask those who per- 
 haps would not have told me. Taking the assign- 
 ment as I would any other, my feeling about it 
 was more for the honor of the Fifth Corps and 
 the Army of the Potomac than for myself. In 
 lineal rank the junior general on the field, I never 
 thought of claiming any special merit, nor tried 
 to attract attention in any way, and believed 
 myself to be socially unpopular among the "high 
 boys." I had never indulged in loose talk, had 
 minded my own business, did not cvury favor with 
 newspaper reporters, did not hang aroimd superior 
 headquarters, and in general had disciplined my- 
 self in self-control and the practice of patience, 
 which virtue was not prominent among my natural 
 endowments. 
 
 Some of my chief superiors had taken notice of 
 this latter peculiarity apparently, as, when the 
 recommendations for my promotion to brigadier- 
 general after Gettysburg were ignored by the 
 "delegation" at Washington, I found myself very 
 soon assigned to command of a brigade. When, 
 after the sharp tests of the Bristoe and Culpeper 
 campaign, I was sent disabled to hospital from 
 Rappahannock Station, and found on^ returning 
 to duty that General Bartlett, of the Sixth 
 Corps, sent over to relieve the dearth of generals 
 in the Fifth, had chosen to take my brigade, 
 I cheerfully returned to my regiment. Having 
 
256 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 in the meantime been applied for to command the 
 Regtilar Brigade in Ayres' Division, I declined the 
 offer at the request of General Griffin, who desired 
 me to remain with the First Division. So remain- 
 ing, I was often put in charge of peciiliarly tr3dng 
 ventures, advance and rear-guard fights, involving 
 command of several regiments, from Spottsylvania 
 to Cold Harbor. Immediately after this, being 
 still Colonel of the 20th Maine, I was assigned in 
 special orders by General Warren to the command 
 of a brigade of six Pennsylvania regiments, made 
 up of veterans of the First Corps, who had distin- 
 guished themselves at Gettysburg by their heroism 
 and their losses, with a fine new regiment of ftdl 
 ranks, — ^mostly veterans also. I devoted my best 
 energies to the perfecting of this command during 
 the campaign before Richmond and the opening 
 assaults on Petersburg, but in the first battle here 
 was severely wounded leading a charge, after 
 rather presumptuously advising against it. Here 
 General Grant promoted me on the field to Briga- 
 dier-General in terms referring to previous history. 
 Returning to the front after months in Annapolis 
 Naval School Hospital, I found my splendid bri- 
 gade broken up and scattered, and its place filled 
 by two new regiments, one from New York and one 
 from Pennsylvania, both of finest material and 
 personnel, but my command was reduced from the 
 largest brigade in the corps to the very smallest. 
 Although offered other highly desirable positions, 
 I quietly took up this little brigade and with no 
 complaints and no petitions for advancement went 
 
Appomattox 257 
 
 forward in my duty with the best that was in 
 me. The noble behavior of these troops was the 
 occasion of the brevet of Major-General, and no 
 doubt in consideration of meekness in small things 
 General Griffin placed under my orders for all 
 the active engagements of this campaign, the fine 
 Second Brigade of the division, — thus giving me 
 a command equal to my former one, or any other 
 in the corps. 
 
 So I had reason to believe that General Griffin 
 had something to do with General Grant's kind 
 remembrance, and negative merits appeared to 
 stand for something. Tout vient a point pour qui 
 sait attendre — "Everything comes in good time to 
 him who knows how to wait. " 
 
 On the morning of the i ith our division had been 
 moved over to relieve Turner's of the Twenty- 
 fourth Corps, Army of the James, near the Court 
 House, where they had been receiving some of 
 the surrendered arms, especially of the artillery 
 on their front, while Mackenzie's cavalry had 
 received the surrendered sabers of W. H. F. Lee's 
 command. 
 
 Praises of General Grant were on every tongue 
 for his magnanimity in allowing the horses of the 
 artillery and cavalry that were the property of the 
 men and not of the Confederacy, to be retained by 
 the men for service in restoring and working their 
 little plantations, and also in requesting the mana- 
 gers of transportation companies in all that region 
 to facilitate in every way the return of these men 
 to their homes. 
 17 
 
258 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 At noon of the nth the troops of the Army of the 
 James took up the march to Lynchburg, to make 
 sure of that yet doubtful point of advantage. Lee 
 and Grant had both left: Lee for Richmond, to see 
 his dying wife; Grant for Washington, only that 
 once more to see again Lincoln living. The busi- 
 ness transactions had been settled, the parole 
 papers made out; all was ready for the last turn, 
 — the dissolving-view of the Army of Northern 
 Virginia. 
 
 It was now the morning of the 12th of April. I 
 had been ordered to have my lines formed for the 
 ceremony at sunrise. It was a chill gray morning, 
 depressing to the senses. But our hearts made 
 warmth. Great memories uprose; great thoughts 
 went forward. We formed along the principal 
 street, from the bluff bank of the stream to near 
 the Court House on the left, — to face the last line 
 of battle, and receive the last remnant of the arms 
 and colors of that great army which ours had been 
 created to confront for all that death can do for 
 life. We were remnants also: Massachusetts, 
 Maine, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New 
 York; veterans, and replaced veterans; cut to 
 pieces, cut down, consolidated, divisions into 
 brigades, regiments into one, gathered by State 
 origin; this little line, quintessence or metem- 
 psychosis of Porter's old corps of Gaines' Mill 
 and Malvern Hill; men of near blood born, made 
 nearer by blood shed. Those facing us — ^now, 
 thank God! the same. 
 
 As for me, I was once more with my old command. 
 
Appomattox 259 
 
 But this was not all I needed. I had taken leave of 
 my little First Brigade so endeared to me, and the 
 end of the fighting had released the Second from all 
 orders from me. But these deserved to share with 
 me now as they had so faithfully done in the sterner 
 passages of the campaign. I got permission from 
 General Griffin to have them also in the parade. 
 I placed the First Brigade in line a little to our rear, 
 and the Second on the opposite side of the street fac- 
 ing us and leaving ample space for the movements 
 of the coming ceremony. Thus the whole division 
 was out, and tmder my direction for the occasion, 
 although I was not the division commander. I 
 thought this troubled General Bartlett a little, 
 but he was a manly and soldierly man and made 
 no comment. He contented himself by mounting 
 his whole staff and with the division flag riding 
 around our lines and conversing as he found 
 opportunity with the Confederate officers. This 
 in no manner disturbed me; my place and part 
 were definite and clear. 
 
 Our earnest eyes scan the busy groups on the 
 opposite slopes, breaking camp for the last time, 
 taking down their little shelter-tents and folding 
 them carefully as precious things, then slowly 
 forming ranks as for unwelcome duty. And now 
 they move. The dusky swarms forge forward 
 into gray coltbnns of march. On they come, with 
 the old swinging route step and swaying battle- 
 flags. In the van, the proud Confederate ensign — 
 the great field of white with canton of star-strewn 
 cross of blue on a field of red, the regimental 
 
26o The Passing of the Armies 
 
 battle-flags with the same escutcheon following on, 
 crowded so thick, by thinning out of men, that the 
 whole column seemed crowned with red. At the 
 right of our Hne our little group mounted beneath 
 otu- flags, the red Maltese cross on a field of white, 
 erewhile so bravely borne through many a field 
 more crimson than itself, its mystic meaning now 
 ruling all. 
 
 The momentous meaning of this occasion im- 
 pressed me deeply. I resolved to mark it by 
 some token of recognition, which could be no 
 other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the 
 responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that 
 wotild follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of 
 that kind could move me in the least. The act 
 cotild be defended, if needful, by the suggestion 
 that such a salute was not to the cause for which 
 the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going 
 down before the flag of the Union. My main 
 reason, however, was one for which I sought no au- 
 thority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud 
 humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: 
 men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the 
 fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could 
 bend from their resolve; standing before us now, 
 thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with 
 eyes looking level into oiirs, waking memories that 
 bound us together as no other bond; — ^was not 
 such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union 
 so tested and assured? 
 
 Instructions had been given; and when the head 
 of each division coltimn comes opposite our group. 
 
Appomattox 261 
 
 our bugle sounds the signal and instantly our whole 
 line from right to left, regiment by regiment in 
 succession, gives the soldier's salutation, from 
 the "order arms" to the old "carry" — ^the march- 
 ing salute. Gordon at the head of the coliimn, 
 riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches 
 the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking 
 the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself 
 and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound 
 salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the 
 boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives 
 word for his successive brigades to pass us with 
 the same position of the manual, — ^honor answering 
 honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, 
 nor roU of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper 
 of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing 
 again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, 
 and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the 
 dead! 
 
 As each successive division masks our own, it 
 halts, the men face inward towards us across the 
 road, twelve feet away; then carefully "dress" 
 their line, each captain taking pains for the good 
 appearance of his company, worn and half starved 
 as they were. The field and staff take their 
 positions in the intervals of regiments; generals in 
 rear of their commands. They fix bayonets, stack 
 arms; then, hesitatingly, remove cartridge-boxes 
 and lay them down. Lastly, — ^reluctantly, with 
 agony of expression, — ^they tenderly fold their flags, 
 battle-worn and torn, blood-stained, heart-holding 
 colors, and lay them down; ^ome frenziedly rush- 
 
262 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ing from the ranks, kneeling over them, cKnging to 
 them, pressing them to their lips with burning tears. 
 And only the Flag of the Union greets the sky! 
 
 What visions thronged as we looked into each 
 other's eyes! Here pass the men of Antietam, the 
 Bloody Lane, the Sttnken Road, the Cornfield, the 
 Bumside-Bridge; the men whom Stonewall Jack- 
 son on the second night at Fredericksburg begged 
 Lee to let him take and crush the two corps of the 
 Army of the Potomac huddled in the streets in 
 darkness and confusion; the men who swept away 
 the Eleventh Corps at Chancellorsville; who left 
 six thousand of their companions around the bases 
 of Culp's and Cemetery Hills at Gettysburg; these 
 survivors of the terrible Wilderness, the Bloody- 
 Angle at Spottsylvania, the slaughter pen of Cold 
 Harbor, the whirlpool of Bethesda Chtirch! 
 
 Here comes Cobb's Georgia Legion, which held 
 the stone wall on Marye's Heights at Fredericks- 
 burg, close before which we piled our dead for 
 breastworks so that the Hving might stay and live. 
 
 Here too come Gordon's Georgians and Hoke's 
 North CaroHnians, who stood before the terrific 
 mine explosion at Petersburg, and advancing re- 
 took the smoking crater and the dismal heaps 
 of dead — ours more than theirs — ^huddled in the 
 ghastly chasm. 
 
 Here are the men of McGowan, Hunton, and 
 Scales, who broke the Fifth Corps lines on the 
 White Oak Road, and were so desperately driven 
 back on that forlorn night of March 31st by my 
 thrice-decimated brigade. 
 
Appomattox 263 
 
 Now comes Anderson's Fourth Corps, only 
 Bushrod Johnson's Division left, and this the rem- 
 nant of those we fought so fiercely on the Quaker 
 Road two weeks ago, with Wise's Legion, too fierce 
 for its own good. 
 
 Here passes the proud remnant of Ransom's 
 North Carolinians which we swept through Five 
 Forks ten days ago, — and all the little that was left 
 of this division in the sharp passages at Sailor's 
 Creek five days thereafter. 
 
 Now makes its last front A. P. Hill's old Corps, 
 Heth now at the head, since Hill had gone too far 
 forward ever to return: the men who poured 
 destruction into our division at Shepardstown 
 Ford, Antietam, in 1862, when Hill reported the 
 Potomac running blue with our bodies; the men 
 who opened the desperate first day's fight at Get- 
 tysburg, where withstanding them so stubbornly 
 otir Robinson's Brigades lost 1185 men, and the 
 Iron Brigade alone 1153, — ^these men of Heth's 
 Division here too losing 2850 men, companions of 
 these now looking into our faces so differently. 
 
 What is this but the remnant of Mahone's 
 Division, last seen by us at the North Anna? its 
 thinned ranks of worn, bright-eyed men recalling 
 scenes of costly valor and ever-remembered history. 
 
 Now the sad great pageant — Longstreet and 
 his men! What shall we give them for greeting 
 that has not already been spoken in volleys of 
 thtmder and written in lines of fire on all the river- 
 banks of Virginia? Shall we go back to Gaines' 
 Mill and Malvern Hill? Or to the Antietam of 
 
264 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Maryland, or Gettysburg of Pennsylvania? — 
 deepest graven of all. For here is what remains 
 of Kershaw's Division, which left 40 per cent, of its 
 men at Antietam, and at Gettysburg with Barks- 
 dale's and Semmes' Brigades tore through the 
 Peach Orchard, rolling up the right of our gallant 
 Third Corps, sweeping over the proud batteries of 
 Massachusetts — ^Bigelow and Philips, — ^where tm- 
 der the smoke we saw the earth brown and blue 
 with prostrate bodies of horses and men, and the 
 tongues of overturned cannon and caissons pointing 
 grim and stark in the air. 
 
 Then in the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania and 
 thereafter, Kershaw's Division again, in deeds of 
 awful glory, held their name and fame, until fate 
 met them at Sailor's Creek, where Kershaw him- 
 self, and Ewell, and so many more, gave up 
 their arms and hopes, — all, indeed, but manhood's 
 honor. 
 
 With what strange emotion I look into these 
 faces before which in the mad assault on Rives' 
 SaUent, Jtme 18, 1864, I was left for dead under 
 their eyes! It is by miracles we have lived to see 
 this day, — ^any of us standing here. 
 
 Now comes the sinewy remnant of fierce Hood's 
 Division, which at Gettysburg we saw potiring 
 through the Devil's Den, and the Plum Run 
 gorge; turning again by the left our stubborn 
 Third Corps, then swarming up the rocky bastions 
 of Round Top, to be met there by equal valor, 
 which changed Lee's whole plan of battle and 
 perhaps the story of Gettysburg. 
 
Appomattox 265 
 
 Ah, is this Pickett's Division? — ^this little group 
 left of those who on the Ivtrid last day of Gettys- 
 burg breasted level cross-fire and thunderbolts of 
 storm, to be strewn back drifting wrecks, where after 
 that awful, futile, pitiful charge we buried them in 
 graves a furlong wide, with names unknown! 
 
 Met again in the terrible cyclone-sweep over the 
 breastworks at Five Forks; met now, so thin, so 
 pale, purged of the mortal, — as if knowing pain or 
 joy no more. How could we help falling on our 
 knees, all of us together, and prasdng God to 
 pity and forgive us all! 
 
 Thus, all day long, division after division comes 
 and goes, siurendered arms being removed by our 
 wagons in the intervals, the cartridge-boxes emp- 
 tied in the street when the ammunition was found 
 imserviceable, our men meanwhile resting in place. 
 
 Meantime many men had been coming in late 
 in the day, complaining that they had been aban- 
 doned by their officers and declaring that they 
 preferred to give their parole in surrender, rather 
 than encounter all the difficulties and hardships 
 of an attempt to escape. 
 
 There are incidents of that scene which may be 
 worth repeating. There was opportunity for con- 
 verse with several Confederate generals. Their 
 bearing was, of cotirse, serious, their spirits sad. 
 What various misgivings mingled in their mood 
 we could not but conjecttire. Levying war against 
 the United States was serious business. But one 
 certain impression was received from them all; 
 they were ready to accept for themselves and for 
 
266 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 the Confederacy any fate our Government should 
 dictate. Lincoln's magnanimity, as Grant's 
 thoughtfulness, had already impressed them much. 
 They spoke like brave men who mean to stand 
 upon their honor and accept the situation. "Gen- 
 eral," says one of them at the head of his corps, 
 "this is deeply humiliating; but I console myself 
 •with the thought that the whole country will re- 
 joice at this day's business. " "You astonish us, " 
 says another of equally high rank, "by your hon- 
 orable and generous conduct. I fear we shoiild not 
 have done the same by you had the case been 
 reversed. " "I will go home, ' ' says a gallant officer 
 from North Carolina, "and tell Joe Johnston we 
 can't fight such men as you. I will advise him 
 to stirrender." "I went into that cause" says 
 yet another of well-known name, "and I meant it. 
 We had our choice of weapons and of ground, and 
 we have lost. Now that is my flag (pointing to 
 the flag of the Union), and I will prove myself as 
 worthy as any of you." 
 
 In fact that was the whole drift of the talk, and 
 there is no reason to doubt that it was sincere. 
 Equally so but quite different was the strain of 
 another. I saw him moving restlessly about, 
 scolding his men and being answered back by them 
 instead of ordering them. He seemed so disturbed 
 in mind that I rode down the line to see if I could 
 not give him a word of cheer. With a respectful 
 salutation, calling his attention to the bearing of 
 the men on both sides, "This promises well for our 
 coming good-wiU," said I; "brave men may be- 
 
Appomattox 267 
 
 come good friends." "You're mistaken, sir," 
 he turned and said. "You may forgive us but we 
 won't be forgiven. There is a rancor in our hearts 
 [here came in an anatomical gesture] which you 
 little dream of. We hate you, sir." "Oh, we 
 don't mind much about dreams, nor about hates 
 either. Those two lines of business are closed," 
 was the qtiiet reply. Then as if a little sorry for 
 his opening, fixing his gaze on two ungainly look- 
 ing holes in the breast of my coat and a much- 
 abused sleeve, he exclaimed in a milder tone: 
 "Those were ugly shots. General. Where did you 
 get these?" Unfortunately I had to admit that 
 this happened on the first day of the campaign in 
 an afternoon I had the honor of spending with him 
 and his party on the Quaker Road, where there 
 were plenty of quakers and shakers also, and some 
 few runners who left me a parting souvenir. "I 
 suppose you think you did great things there," 
 he burst in. "I was ordered to attack you and 
 check your advance; and I did it too with a vim, 
 till I found I was fighting three army corps, when 
 I thought it prudent to retire." I was really 
 sorry to have to reassure him that there was no 
 more than the third part of one corps present on 
 our side. "I know better," he cries; "I saw the 
 flags myself." I think that he did stop to count 
 three before he left us, leaving his cap behind. 
 But I could not resist saying: "You saw the flags 
 of three regiments ; steady eyes could see no more. " 
 One of his staff officers corroborates this, and for a 
 moment he subsides. Then he breaks out again: 
 
268 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 "It's a pity you have no lawyers in your army, " — 
 I did not know what was coming now, unless he 
 wanted to make his will, — "you don't know how to 
 make out paroles. Who ever heard of paroles 
 being signed by any but the parties paroled?" I 
 tried to explain to him that this was a matter of 
 mercy and htunanity, for if we should keep aU 
 their men there till every individual cotild sign his 
 parole, half of them would be dead of starvation 
 before their turn came. "Nonsense," he rejoins; 
 "all that is spargere voces; every lawyer knows such 
 a parole as this is a mere brutum fulmen. " "Sir," 
 I answer, "if by brute thunderbolts you mean a 
 pledged word to keep the peace accepted and 
 adopted by the recipient of the favor, I don't 
 beUeve your people need any lawyer to instruct 
 them as to the word of honor. " I was about to 
 turn away; he catches the suggestion of the motion 
 and issues a parting order. "You go home," he 
 cries, "you take these fellows home. That's what 
 will end the war." "Don't worry about the end 
 of the war, ' ' I answer. ' ' We are going home pretty 
 soon, but not till we see you home." "Home!" 
 he snatches up the word. "We haven't any. You 
 have destroyed them. You have invaded Vir- 
 ginia, and ruined her. Her curse is on you." 
 "You shouldn't have invited us down here then, " 
 was the obvious reply. "We expected somebody 
 was going to get hurt when we took up your chal- 
 lenge. Didn't you? People who don't want to get 
 htirt. General, had better not force a fight on 
 unwilling Yankees." 
 
Appomattox 269 
 
 By this time the thing grew comic. The staff 
 officers both in blue and gray laughed outright; 
 and even his men looked around from their somber 
 service and smiled as if they enjoyed the joke. 
 He ttirned away also to launch his "brute thtinder- 
 bolts," not waiting to receive my thanks for in- 
 struction in Law and Latin. "The wise man 
 foreseeth the evil and hideth himself, but the 
 foolish pass on and are ptinished, says the old 
 proverb." If there are no exceptions to this rule, 
 then this gentleman was not rightly named. 
 
 With this comedy ends, in classic fashion, the 
 stem drama of the Appomattox. A strange and 
 somber shadow rose up ghost-like from the haunts 
 of memory or habit, and rested down over the final 
 parting scene. How strong are these ties of habit! 
 How strange the undertone of sadness even at the 
 release from prison and from pain! It seems as if 
 we had put some precious part of ourselves there 
 which we are loath to leave. 
 
 When all is over, in the dusk of evening, the 
 long lines of scattered cartridges are set on fire, 
 and the lurid flames wreathing the blackness of 
 earthly shadows give an tinearthly border to our 
 parting. 
 
 Then, stripped of every token of enmity or 
 instrument of power to hurt, they march off to give 
 their word of honor never to lift arms against the 
 old flag again till its holders release them from 
 their promise. Then, their ranks broken, the 
 bonds that bound them fused away by forces 
 stronger than fire, they are free at last to go where 
 
270 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 they will; to find their homes, now most likely 
 stricken, despoiled by war. 
 
 Twenty-seven thousand men paroled; seventeen 
 thousand stand of arms laid down or gathered up; 
 a hundred battle-flags. But regiments and bri- 
 gades — or what is left of them — ^have scarce a score 
 of arms to surrender; having thrown them away 
 by road and riverside in weariness of flight or 
 hopelessness of heart, disdaining to carry them 
 longer but to disaster. And many a bare staff was 
 there laid down, from which the ensign had been 
 torn in the passion and struggle of emotions, and 
 divided piece by piece; a blurred or shrunken 
 star, a rag of smoke-stained blue from the war- 
 worn cross, a shred of deepened dye from the rent 
 field of red, to be treasured for precious keepsakes 
 of manhood's test and heirlooms for their children. 
 
 Nor blame them too much for this, nor us for 
 not blaming them more. Although, as we believed, 
 fatally wrong in striking at the old flag, misreading 
 its deeper meaning and the innermost law of the 
 people's life, blind to the signs of the times in the 
 march of man, they fought as they were taught, 
 true to such ideals as they saw, and put into their 
 cause their best. For us they were fellow-soldiers 
 as well, suffering the 'fate of arms. We could not 
 look into those brave, bronzed faces, and those 
 battered flags we had met on so many fields where 
 glorious manhood lent a glory to the earth that 
 bore it, and think of personal hate and mean 
 revenge. Whoever had misled these men, we had 
 not. We had led them back, home. Whoever had 
 
Appomattox 271 
 
 made that quarrel, we had not. It was a remnant 
 of the inherited curse for sin. We had purged it 
 away, with blood-oflferings. We were all of us 
 together factors of that high will which, working 
 often through illusions of the human, and following 
 ideals that lead through storms, evolves the en- 
 franchisement of man. 
 
 Forgive us, therefore, if from stem, steadfast 
 faces eyes dimmed with tears gazed at each other 
 across that pile of storied relics so dearly there laid 
 down, and brothers' hands were fain to reach 
 across that rushing tide of memories which divided 
 us, yet made us forever one. 
 
 It was our glory only that the victory we had 
 won was for country, for the well-being of others, 
 of these men before us as well as for ourselves and 
 ours. Our joy was a deep, far, unspoken satisfac- 
 tion, — the approval, as it were, of some voiceless 
 and veiled divinity like the appointed "Angel of 
 the Nation" of which the old scripttires tell — 
 leading and looking far, yet mindfiil of sorrows; 
 standing above all himian strife and fierce passages 
 of trial; not marking faults nor seeking blame; 
 transmuting into factors of the final good corrected 
 errors and forgiven sins; assuring of immortal in- 
 heritance all pure purpose and noble endeavor, 
 htunblest service and costliest sacrifice, unconscious 
 and even mistaken martyrdoms offered and suffered 
 for the sake of man. 
 
 Now on the morrow, over all the hillsides in 
 the peaceful sunshine, are clouds of men on foot or 
 horse, singly or in groups, making their earnest way 
 
272 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 as by the instinct of the ant, each with his own little 
 burden, each for his own little home. And we are 
 left alone, and lonesome. We miss our ' spirited 
 antagonists in the game, and we lose interest. The 
 weight is taken out of the opposite scale, and we go 
 down. Never are we less gay. And when we took 
 up the long, round-about march homeward, it was 
 dull to plod along looking only at the muddy road, 
 without scouts and skirmishers ahead, and reckless 
 of our flanks. It was tame to think we could ride 
 up to any thicket of woods we pleased, without 
 starting at the chirrup of those little bluebirds 
 whose cadence was so familiar to our ears, and 
 made so deep a lodgment in our bosoms too, some- 
 times. It was dreary to lie down and sleep at 
 night and think there was no vigilant picket out on 
 the dubious-looking crests around to keep faithful 
 watch and ward. And it seems sheer waste of 
 opportunity and mark of military incapacity, when 
 we emerge from some deep wood or defile and 
 no battery belches destruction upon us from so 
 advantageous a position as the commanding heights 
 beyond. 
 
 But slowly these lingering images of memory or 
 habit are lost in the currents of a deeper mood; 
 we wonder at that mysterious dispensation whereby 
 the pathway of the kingdom of Love on earth must 
 needs be cut through by the sword, and why it must 
 be that by such things as we had seen and done 
 and suffered, and lost and won, a step is taken in 
 the homeward march of man. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE ARMY 
 
 ALTHOUGH fraught with deepest interest 
 and filled with occupations of great variety, 
 our sojourn at Appomattox Court House 
 was a hard experience. We had raced to that 
 point in lightest marching order; there was no 
 superfluity of equipage. The packs were slender; 
 overcoats and blankets had proved too heavy for 
 those thirty-mile marches. The shelter-tent cloths 
 had to serve for these, and for towels also, which 
 they most resembled. The rations reduced to 
 sediment in the haversacks smelt of lead and 
 gunpowder. To be stire, a few supply wagons had 
 managed to get up to us, and our cavalry had 
 captured some trains at Appomattox Station; 
 but all we had we shared with our siirrendering 
 competitors, technically called "the enemy," — 
 now become our sympathizing guests. For a day 
 or two past all hands had to forage for a living, 
 and many a ten-mile tramp resulted only in arm- 
 fuls of com on the cob, which needed a good deal 
 of soaking to yield to our practised jaws. It got it. 
 
 For when on Saturday morning we took up the 
 i8 273 
 
274 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 march for Burkeville and had got well stretched 
 out on the road, we were overtaken by a pouring 
 rain, which made mulch of everything. Seeking 
 the center of the earth by a force of gravity we 
 could fully sympathize with, it soon formed a junc- 
 tion in the roads and fields to the extent of four or 
 five inches of "half and half," denominated in the 
 Low-German dialect "mudde"; but later circum- 
 stances incHned certain travelers to transpose the 
 superfluous final "d " and put it to use as the initial 
 prefix of a deeply descriptive adjective. Drenched, 
 hungry, draggled in mire, that long, lank body 
 presented an image not imlike that reported by 
 Daniel on the king's dream, — ^the head gold, the 
 beUy brass, the legs iron, and the feet clay, — 
 but the proportions were not so well observed. 
 We were informed in animated tones that we were 
 to draw rations that night, — ^but what kind of a 
 "draw" it was to be we were by no means assured. 
 We noticed that the goal was fixed a long stretch 
 ahead ; it suggested to us what we had seen offered 
 a team of cattle tolled on by a show of forage 
 fastened well forward of the yoke or pole. 
 
 Near Evergreen Station we struck the Southside 
 Railroad, and hoping to save the men's strength, I 
 told the colonel of the leading regiraent to have 
 his men take the railroad track and keep out of the 
 heavy mud. They tried it for a while, but soon I 
 saw them jtimping back into the mire ankle deep; 
 and, wondering at this, I felt rebtaked for my sim- 
 plicity, when informed that the men found it much 
 more wearing to watch the varjdng distance of the 
 
The Return of the Army 275 
 
 cross-ties spaced anywhere from eighteen inches 
 to two feet, and measure every step accordingly, 
 than to take the road as it was, and be free to put 
 their feet down wherever they could get them out 
 again. So dear is liberty. 
 
 Long after dark we were led to a place desig- 
 nated for a camp. To reach this we were counter- 
 marched or turned off on a tangent for quite a 
 space, and halted on a flat-pine land, some cubit 
 lower and knee deeper than the road. I heard no 
 orders given the regiments to "break ranks," the 
 effort of the officers was to get their men together, 
 that they might be looked after, and possibly, 
 though a whimsical suggestion, to draw rations. 
 But no commissary could find us in that dark and 
 drench, even if the wagons could worry through 
 the muddle. Fire would be of no use; the thought 
 of trying to make one would do more good, for it 
 would raise our spirits to join "the mighty laughter 
 of the vernal floods." It was interesting to hear 
 the men — ^poor fellows — ^making their beds, some 
 on the rugged roots of the pines, or cradled be- 
 tween two broken branches to lift them from softer 
 pillows, or securing the shelter of a big bough, 
 which ever and anon swaying under accumulated 
 weight, bent down to envelop them in unwelcome 
 "sheets." Now some one seeking the open, — 
 less covering the best, — ^reckless of all things, now 
 that they had returned to "chaos and old night." 
 One bright, belated fellow, seeking to share some 
 luckier sleeper's cot, was heard muttering with 
 ' ' wakeful ' ' reminiscence, ' ' Sure, a Yank wud shleep 
 
276 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 uf the divil sat at his hid!" To us, in so-called 
 headquarters — though quarters were not perfectly 
 distinguished that night amidst such mingling of 
 the elements — a kind of ichthyosaurian sleep came 
 at last — dreaming that the whole earth was about 
 this way once, and fully sympathizing with the 
 Hebrew description of it as ' Tohoo vaw Vohoo, " 
 if not exactly "without form and void. " 
 
 In the morning the men sighted the few places 
 where they could get splinters enough to make a 
 fire to cook their last "ration" of pickled pork and 
 gunpowder. Then pulling out at 6 a.m. under 
 chilly rain and lowering clouds, we took the road 
 for Farmville. It was Sunday afternoon when we 
 reached its vicinity, and were welcomed by a sky 
 clear and serene, overlooking the town. The 
 trains were there, and so a breakfast — in literal 
 terms, though belated fact. The clouds had rolled 
 away and field and camp were flooded with sun- 
 shine. All the domestic arts were soon in evidence, 
 — ^largely that of washing-day; — as if we had not 
 had enough in the previous twenty-fotir hours. 
 Gradually a Sabbath peace stole over the scene. 
 All were at rest, mind and body, and the very 
 heart of nature breathed soft airs and mellow light. 
 
 Headquarters had been taken in the ample 
 front yard of an old mansion of the ancient regime. 
 Here at about four o'clock the fine German Band 
 of my old First Brigade came over to reciprocate 
 the smiles of heaven by choice music, ministering 
 also to our spiritual upgoings. They were in the 
 midst of a bright and joyous strain when there came 
 
The Return of the Army 277 
 
 galloping up the old familiar figure— the mud- 
 splashed, grave-faced, keen-eyed cavalryman, — 
 the message-bearer. It was no imcommon thing 
 to receive a military telegram in those days; but 
 something in the manner and look of this messenger 
 took my attention. He rode up in front of the 
 sentinel and the colors, and dismounted. My 
 chief of staff went out to meet him. "I think the 
 General would wish to treat this as personal, " he 
 said. I beckoned him to the rear of our group, and 
 he handed me a yellow tissue-paper telegram. It 
 read as I remember it, — ^the original was kept by 
 somebody as a memento: 
 
 "Washington, April 15, 1865. 
 "The President died this morning. Wilkes 
 Booth the assassin. Secretary Seward dangerously 
 wounded. The rest of the Cabinet, General Grant, 
 and other high officers of the Government included 
 in the plot of destruction." 
 
 I should have been paralyzed by the shock, had 
 not the sense of responsibility overborne all other 
 thoughts. If treachery had overturned the Govern- 
 ment, and had possession of the Capitol, there was 
 work for us to do. But the first thought was of the 
 effect of this upon our soldiers. They, for every 
 reason, must be held in hand. "Put a double 
 guard on the whole camp immediately. Tell the 
 regimental commanders to get all their men in, 
 and allow no one to leave," — was the first word 
 sent out. "Then tell the gentlemen I would like 
 
278 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 to see them here." I stepped back and with 
 especial pains to be calm and courteous I thanked 
 and dismissed the band, and they quietly withdrew. 
 All eyes were on me, but not until my officers came 
 up did I disclose to any one this appalling news. 
 I enjoined upon them absolute reticence until we 
 had made all secure. Against what? and whom? 
 Our men. They could be trusted well to bear any 
 blow but this. Their love for the President was 
 something marvelous. Their great loving hearts 
 of sterling manhood seemed to have gathered 
 him in. After each success and especially after 
 each great reverse, he had been accustomed to 
 come out to see them. That honest, homely face, 
 showing how heavily pressed the terrible burden 
 that had come upon him, — of settling the "irre- 
 pressible conflict" which had been growing for a 
 century; that look of an infinite sadness in the 
 eyes that rested with such trust and such solicitude 
 on these men, the only instruments with which to 
 f ulfiU his task ! Heart-wrung by the sacrifice, he had 
 taken deep hold on the soldier's heart, stirring its 
 many chords. Now the cowardly, brutal blow, 
 when his words of gentleness to all were still warm 
 as the breath of the rettiming spring, must stir 
 their yet unfathomed depths. It might take but 
 little to rouse them to a frenzy of blind revenge. 
 And right before them lay a city, one of the nerve- 
 centers of the rebellion, and an easy and inviting 
 prey to vengeance. Large quantities of goods, 
 military and merchandise, had been stored there, 
 it was said; many citizens had gathered there for 
 
The Return of the Army 279 
 
 safety against the marauders of a demoralized 
 army; a young ladies' seminary, we were told, 
 serving especially as a sort of sanctuary for the 
 tender and sensitive, which they thought would be 
 respected even in those turbulent times. 
 
 How cotild we be sure that change of century had 
 made men different from what they were when 
 Tilly at Magdeburg, Cromwell at Wexford,' or 
 Wellington at San Sebastian had been powerless 
 to restrain dire passions, excited by far less cause? 
 How could we be sure that lessons and thoughts 
 of home, the habit of well formed character, and 
 the disciphne of the field would be sufficient to 
 hold within the bounds of patience men who saw 
 that most innocent and noble-hearted man, their 
 best-beloved, the stricken victim of infernal out- 
 rage? I knew my men thoroughly, high-minded 
 and self -controlled; but what if now this blackest 
 crime should fire their hearts to reckless and 
 implacable vengeance? 
 
 But a heavier responsibility, perhaps, awaited 
 us. Strange forebodings pressed upon the mind. 
 It seemed as if the darkest things might be yet to 
 come; as if, now that men of honor had given up 
 the fight, it had fallen to baser hands; as if victory, 
 magnanimity, and charity, accepted by those who 
 had lost in the manly appeal to arms, were all to 
 avail nothing against the sullen treacheries that 
 lurked in the shadows of the capital. 
 
 As I was pacing the ground, Wrapped in anxious 
 thoughts, the lady of the house — there were never 
 any men at home in those days — came out to 
 
28o The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ask what had happened that disturbed us so 
 deeply. 
 
 "It is bad news for the South," said I. "Is it 
 Lee or Davis?" she asked, a look of pain pinching 
 her features. "I must tell you, madam, with a 
 warning," I replied. "I have put your house 
 under a strict guard. It is Lincoln. " 
 
 I was sorry to see her face brighten with an 
 expression of relief. "The South has lost its best 
 friend, madam, " was the only thing to say. 
 
 All being now secure in camp, with the assurance 
 that the news should be prudently broken to the 
 men, instinct and habit turned to the superior 
 officers. Even the companionship of these ex- 
 perienced men would be some relief; and perhaps 
 there might be counsel to be taken now, as in so 
 many a dark and boding hour before. Leaving 
 General Gregory at my quarters with instructions, 
 I mounted my horse. My thought was antici- 
 pated. Scarcely had I got beyond the limits of 
 otu: camp when I saw a figure often welcome to 
 many eyes, — Charles Griffin riding up,— our corps 
 commander now, and never more prized than at 
 this hour. "I was coming to see you," he says; 
 "now let us get Ayres." Finding Ayres — ^soldier 
 born, and tried and true, — ^we discussed possible 
 tactics on an unknown field. We did not pretend 
 to be men of influence in statecraft; but we well 
 knew we were likely, if anything was to be done, 
 to be men of action. So we had reason and right to 
 forecast events. All we knew as yet of the con- 
 dition of things at Washington was what the brief 
 
The Return of the Army 281 
 
 telegram had. told. But that looked dark enough. 
 It was a daring attempt, and, as it was told to us, 
 must have had reserved force to support it, as well 
 as reckless impulse to carry it out. Lee's army had 
 been broken up; many able and honorable officers, 
 and perhaps thirty thousand of their best men 
 had given their parole; but Davis and officers 
 of his Government had got away, and there were 
 other armies and other men, whom the shock of 
 the surrender and remoteness from the controll- 
 ing influence had made desperate rather than 
 discouraged. 
 
 Our little conference was soon concluded. ' ' Now 
 let us go up and see Meade," said Griffin. We 
 found him sad — very sad. He had only two corps 
 with him, the Second and Fifth; the Sixth had 
 been sent in another direction. And the course of 
 dealings in this last campaign led to gloomy fore- 
 bodings as to his own treatment when we should 
 arrive at Washington. We well knew what his 
 mood and meditations were — like St. Paul's: "I 
 go bound in spirit up to Jerusalem, not knowing 
 the things that shall befall me there." But this 
 supreme exigency roused all the patriot and soldier 
 in him. 
 
 The upshot of this conference was expressed in 
 words I weU remember: "The plan is to destroy 
 the Government by assassination. They probably 
 have means to get possession of the capital before 
 anybody can stop them. There is nothing for it 
 but to push the army to Washington, and make 
 Grant miUtary dictator until we can restore con- 
 
282 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 stitutional government." This may be smiled at 
 now, as the habit is after the peril has passed, 
 especially on the part of those who never realized 
 it. But in the situation of things then, there was 
 little to laugh at. The spirit of that evening con- 
 ference showed one reliance to be counted on in 
 case the need had come. 
 
 We returned at evening to pur several stations, 
 ready for anything. But no worse news came from 
 the capital. Our soldiers, like our people, wonder- 
 fully patient in severest stress, kept their self- 
 command even now. So the march was resumed 
 calmly and orderly as before, and more so, now 
 that we had free course and a fair road. In the 
 meantime I had been assigned to the command 
 of the First Division of the Fifth Corps, General 
 Bartlett having been transferred to the Ninth 
 Corps at Alexandria. Two days' additional rations 
 were issued at daylight on the 17th, and we 
 marched out for Burkeville. Near here we were 
 by some blunder switched off on the Danville 
 Road, and encamped near Liberty Church by the 
 Little Sandy River. The erroneous move being 
 now discovered, we resurtied ovii march early the 
 next morning, almost retracing our steps, and 
 finally encamped near BttrkeviUe. On the nine- 
 teenth, the day appointed for the funeral of the 
 President at Washington, an order came from the 
 War Department for us to halt the march and 
 hold aU still while the funeral was passing at the 
 capital, Then we thought, why not for us a 
 funeral? For the shadow of one reverenced and 
 
The Return of the Army 283 
 
 beloved was to pass before our souls that day, and 
 we would review him, now. 
 
 We began by draping headquarters tents with 
 mourning rosettes of crape; then also draping the 
 colors and our sword-hilts, with a wreath of crape, 
 too, on the left arms of all. At noon, the solemn 
 boom of the minute-guns, speaking power and 
 sorrow, hushed all the camp. I summoned the 
 senior chaplain of the division, Father Egan, and 
 told him we looked to him for the memorial address, 
 cautioning him to prepare beforehand, not so 
 much what to say, as what not to say. For I 
 knew his Irish warmth and power of speech, and 
 that he might, if not restrained, stir the hearts of 
 the men too much for our control. He assured 
 me he would be very careftd. The division was 
 formed in hollow square, facing inward. The old 
 flags were brought to the front of their regiments, 
 battle-torn and smoke-dimmed, draped in sorrow, 
 but some of them blazoned with a crimson deeper 
 than their red, touching the stars. Behind these 
 the men stacked arms, and stood, tense and 
 motionless, as a hushed sea. Those faces spoke 
 depths of manliness, and reaches of deeds words 
 do not record. The veterans of terrible campaigns, 
 the flushed faces from Appomattox, the burning 
 hearts turned homewards, mighty memories and 
 quenchless love held innermost. On the open face 
 of the square, on a little mound, we planted the 
 red Maltese cross of the division,— itself emblem 
 and memorial of great things suffered and done for 
 man. Arotmd it gathered the generals and staff: 
 
284 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Griflfin chief, never forgetting his old division, 
 with which he had passed through all things from 
 the beginning, its name and soul the same, after 
 terrible transmutations, — Griffin, graceful in figure, 
 sincere and brave of speech, reverential and re- 
 ligious in cherished thought; Ayres, too, ours from 
 the beginning, solid and sure as the iron guns he 
 brought, holding all his powers well in hand, faced 
 to the front; gallant, ever-ready, dashing Pearson; 
 dear old Gregory, pure-souled as crystal, thinking 
 never of self, calmest in death's carnival; others, 
 younger, — ^how shall I name them all? StafiE 
 officers, cool, keen, and swift as sword flash, fvil- 
 fUHng vital trusts, even at vital cost ; — of such our 
 group. On the little platform of ammunition 
 boxes I held myself close in reach of the chaplain 
 ready to enforce my warning. 
 
 Catching the keynote of the last cannon-boom, 
 strikes in the sincere, deep-feeHng German Band 
 with that wondrous "Russian Hjmin" swelling 
 with its flood of music, — deep calling unto deep : 
 
 " God, the all-terrible; Thou who ordainest, 
 
 Thunder Thy clarion, and lightning Thy sword." 
 
 That whelming flood of chords with the breath- 
 stifling chromatic cadences, as if to prepare us for 
 whatever life or death could bring. 
 
 Then, a few words — such as could be spoken — 
 introducing the occasion and its orator. His very 
 first words deepened the passion of the music 
 echoing in the hearts of that stem, impression- 
 able, loving, remembering assembly. With counte- 
 
The Return of the Army 285 
 
 nance precluding speech, in measured articula- 
 tion made more impressive by its slightly foreign 
 cast, he launches forth his thrilling text: "And 
 she, being instructed of her mother, said, 'Give 
 me here the head of John Baptist in a charger.' " 
 The application went through men's minds with 
 a thrill. But he took it up phrase by phrase. 
 The spirit of rebellion against the country's life 
 and honor, he said, incited its followers to mur- 
 der the innocent and just. Even on its own 
 showing, the cause of secession was narrow and 
 trivial. The will of a section rooted in self-interest, 
 should not outweigh the vital interests of a whole 
 people. Lincoln had committed no crime in being 
 constitutionally elected President of the United 
 States. He then portrayed the character of Lin- 
 coln, his integrity, his rugged truth, his innocence 
 of wrong, his loyalty and lofty fidelity to the people. 
 Then having raised this figure to its highest ideal 
 lights and most endearing attractiveness, he pic- 
 ttired him stricken down by dastard hand in the 
 very midst of acts of mercy and words of great- 
 hearted sympathy and love. Gathering up the 
 emotions of his audience with searching, imploring 
 glance, he reminded the soldiers of Lincoln's love 
 for them, and theirs for him; that brotherhood of 
 suffering that made them one in soul with him. 
 
 "And will you endure this sacrilege?" he cried. 
 "Can heavenly charity tolerate such crime under 
 the flag of this deHvered country?" "WiU you 
 not rather sweep such a spirit out of the land 
 forever, and cast it, root and branch, into ever- 
 
286 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 lasting burning?" Men's faces flushed and paled. 
 Their muscles trembled. I saw them grasp as for 
 their stacked muskets, instinctively, from habit, 
 not knowing what else, or what, to do. I myself 
 was tmder the spell. Well that the commander was 
 there, to check the flaming orator. Men could not 
 bear it. You could not, were I able to reproduce 
 the scene. Then the speaker stopped. He stood 
 transfixed. I seized his arm. "Father Egan, you 
 must not stop . Tiim this excitement to some good . ' ' 
 "I will," he whispers. Then lifting his arm full 
 height, he brought it down with a tremendous 
 sweep, as if to gather in the whole quivering circle 
 before him, and went on: "Better so. Better to 
 die glorious, than to live infamous. Better to be 
 buried beneath a nation's tears, than to walk the 
 earth guilty of a nation's blood. Better, thou- 
 sandfold, forever better, Lincoln dead, than Davis 
 living." 
 
 Then admonished of the passion he was again 
 arousing, he passed to an exhortation that rose 
 into a prayer, then to a psean of victory, and with 
 an oath of new consecration to the undying cause 
 of freedom and right, he gave us back to ourselves, 
 better soldiers, and better men. Who that heard 
 those burning words can ever forget them? And 
 who that saw, can ever forget that congregation 
 in the field? Meekly returning from their glories 
 at Appomattox, and sternly sharing — ^for it was of 
 theirs also — ^the sacrifice at Washington. Stead- 
 fast and noble in every test, unto the end. God 
 bless them beyond, likewise! 
 
The Return of the Army 287 
 
 That evening came the orders for the corps to 
 stretch itself out for permanent duty along the 
 railroad between Burkeville and Petersburg, and 
 the next morning we moved for the new field. 
 Ayres' Division took ground from Burkeville to 
 Nottaway Court House, his headquarters being at 
 the latter place, which was also headquarters of the 
 corps. From this Crawford's Division extended 
 six miles farther to the station called "Blacks and 
 Whites," where he made his headquarters. His 
 jtuisdiction also reached to Wilson's Station. Here 
 my division, the First, took up the line from Wil- 
 son's Station to Petersburg, headquarters being 
 at Wilson's. The distance from here to Peters- 
 burg being twenty-seven miles, made for me a dis- 
 proportionate responsibility, and an order from 
 army headquarters terminated my jurisdiction at 
 Sutherland's Station, ten miles out. 
 
 Our assigned duty was to guard the railroads and 
 the adjacent territory. But there were many other 
 duties necessitated by the condition of the country 
 and of the inhabitants. This region had been 
 overrun successively by the two hostile armies for 
 the last two years, hence it was now a scene of 
 desolation. This was exemplified within the limits 
 of my own command. My First Brigade, com- 
 manded by Colonel Sniper, had its headquarters at 
 Wilson's, which was in the vicinity of our conflicts 
 on the White Oak Road ; my Second Brigade, under 
 General Gregory, made headquarters at Ford's 
 Station, its jurisdiction covering the battlefields 
 of Five Forks, Dinwiddle, and the White Oak Road; 
 
288 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 and the Third, the Veteran Brigade, of nine 
 regiments — ^lately my own — commanded now by 
 Colonel Edmunds of the 32 Massachusetts, was 
 placed at Sutherland's Station, which covered the 
 fields of the Quaker Road, Armstrong's MiU, 
 Hatcher's Run, and of many minor fights on the 
 left of our old entrenched lines. It was familiar 
 ground. It was painful to be brought into contact 
 with the ruin, waste, and desolation that had been 
 wrought upon proud old Virginia, and her once 
 prosperous homes. Well were they reluctant to 
 declare themselves foes of the American Union; 
 dearly had they paid for the distinction when the 
 Confederacy demanded that its defiance to the 
 Union should be enforced under their prestige and 
 entrenched upon their soil. 
 
 Settling into our new position we soon found that 
 obeying orders was not the whole of our duty. To 
 be sure the war was not yet over by official recogni- 
 tion; but these suffering people were our own, — 
 citizens of our common country we had fought to 
 preserve. Had they not been so, humanity and 
 honor woiild have commanded our aid. Peace 
 indeed there was on all the face of the country, — 
 the desolation that has been called a "Roman 
 peace." But the inhabitants we had to defend 
 against lawlessness and violence, and save them 
 from starvation and despair. Since the breaking 
 up of the rebel lines, three weeks before, the whole 
 region had been a scene of marauding upon the 
 defenseless citizens, who were unable to remove 
 to any other place than this, which they had still 
 
The Return of the Army 289 
 
 to call their home. The depraved and soulless 
 take advantage of others' misery, and make the 
 day of calamity their holiday. Such had been the 
 case at Richmond but a few weeks before, when, 
 freed from the control of Lee's army, it was 
 pillaged and fired by the base hidden within its 
 limits, and it was humane conquerors who restored 
 order and repaired hurt and harm. We found the 
 negroes especially unruly. All restraints which had 
 hitherto held them in check were set Idose by the 
 sudden collapse of the rebel armies. The flood- 
 gates were opened to the rush of animal instinct. 
 The only notion of freedom apparently entertained 
 by these bewildered people was to do as they 
 pleased. That was what they had reason to sup- 
 pose white men did. To act according to each 
 one's nature was liberty, contrasted with slavery. 
 Numbers gave them a kind of frenzy. Without 
 accustomed support, without food, or opportunity 
 to work, they not tmnattirally banded together; 
 and without any serious organization and probably 
 without much deliberate plotting of evil, they still 
 spread terror over the country. They swarmed 
 through houses and homes demanding food, 
 seizing all goods they cotild lay their hands on, 
 abusing the weak, terrifying women, and threaten- 
 ing to bum and destroy. This was an evil that 
 had to be met promptly, and we construed our 
 orders to protect the country liberally. So the 
 First Brigade under Colonel Sniper was sent out 
 charged with the duty of protecting the homes of 
 the people, and the peace of the community, more 
 
 ig 
 
290 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 especially against the depredations of the lawless 
 negro bands, of whom there were about a thousand 
 within my jurisdiction. For our lines were ex- 
 tensive in depth as well as length, somewhat to 
 the confusion of ordinary geometry. A constant 
 reconnoissance was going on to break up, drive off, 
 or hold at bay the hordes that were hovering about 
 the towns and farm-houses. In cases of personal 
 violence or outrage, my orders were sharp, and the 
 process more summary than that authorized by 
 cottrts. There was no other way. 
 
 Meantime the condition of the citizens of that 
 region had excited the attention of our authorities, 
 and much correspondence had been going on. 
 Orders hitherto had forbidden us to fxirnish food 
 for citizens tinless they took the oath of allegiance 
 to the United States. But conditions compelled 
 us sometimes to take responsibility not strictly 
 authorized. I had adopted some measures of a 
 domestic character. One of them was in the 
 commissary's and quartermaster's departments. 
 The lack of food among the people was a condition 
 which laid on us an imperative duty. We had 
 seized, of coiirse, all the commissary's supplies 
 belonging to the Confederacy and distributed 
 them among the citizens. I felt obliged now to 
 take under control all the necessities of life to 
 whomsoever belonging, both for protection and for 
 judicial distribution. Mills, shops, and stores were 
 also taken under control and put in operation, and 
 the products distributed according to need. Strict 
 accounts were kept; debits and credits carefully 
 
The Return of the Army 291 
 
 adjusted to ,the parties concerned. Abandoned 
 vehicles, implements, and animals, chiefly Con- 
 federate property, were seized and put in the hands 
 of those who could make use of them for livelihood. 
 We also had to undertake the administration of 
 justice. There were no courts, or municipal or 
 police officers, exercising functions in that region; 
 in fact no semblance of authority, human or divine, 
 except our own. We had no civil jurisdiction; we 
 acted under the laws of war, — ^not of martial, but 
 of military law, which admits of some discretion 
 on the part of its responsible agents. It is said: 
 "Necessity knows no law"; but it compelled us to 
 make them. There was a great back cotmtry 
 around us. Demoralized relics and stragglers from 
 both the Confederate and the Union armies were 
 coming in, and became for a time ottr guests, volun- 
 tary or involuntary, according to behavior. Com- 
 plaints were constant from civil and military sources 
 as to the misbehavior of some of these men. Now 
 and then charges were brought against our own men. 
 These cases must be disposed of. Otherwise our 
 provost guard would be swamped with prisoners. 
 So a division court-martial was duly organized, 
 with General Pearson as president.' This was in 
 effect at least a tribunal of justice, and it inspired 
 respect, as well as compelled obedience. The court, 
 ably conducted, was very careful in its procedure 
 and its decisions. It came to be looked upon as a 
 legitimate if not legal authority. Citizens high and 
 low were often the complainers, and, assuming 
 the power to summon witnesses and cause attend- 
 
292 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ance, we could generally discover the real ciilprit 
 or delinquent, who preferred to accept our decision 
 rather than risk himself away from our protection. 
 The queer thing about otir court was that its fame 
 soon went abroad, and it was appealed to by many 
 reputable citizens who could not otherwise settle 
 their difficulties with their old servants or with 
 each other. We did not tindertake to settle ques- 
 tions of property, but only of conduct. The records 
 of that coturt must be very amusing. I do not 
 think they all went to the archives at Washington. 
 Nor would I quite wish to disclose all that came 
 within my knowledge. 
 
 But we had one constant difficulty no recon- 
 noissance or court could settle. Oiir Government 
 authorized the issue of food from otir commissary 
 stores absolutely necessary for the sustenance of 
 citizens; but only on the condition, to be strictly 
 enforced, that the beneficiaries should first take 
 the. oath of allegiance to the United States. Many 
 of our clients gave this rather too promptly for 
 the satisfaction of our solemn justiciary of the 
 commissary department. There was a misgiving — 
 not to indiilge a pun — ^lest people who had been 
 calling the Yankees all the bad names they cotild 
 hit upon, were altogether too easy in accepting 
 favors of them, and in their new kind of swearing 
 towards the United States. For my own part, I 
 had not this opinion. I believed there was more 
 genuineness in this declaration of allegiance than 
 in their real loyalty to the Confederacy. Very 
 many felt that they had been drawn into this by a 
 
The Return of the Army 293 
 
 play upon their State pride and the example of 
 great men whom they revered. In truth it was a 
 grave responsibility they took upon themselves, 
 these leading minds, in issues so deep-reaching and 
 effects so disastrous to the well-being of a State 
 honored and beloved by us all for its part in the 
 making of the Union. 
 
 Some cases of this oath-taking drew their own 
 peculiar meed of tender regard. One such was 
 reported to me by our young provost marshal. A 
 young lady of finest manners had ridden to our 
 headquarters, followed by a servant on a mule 
 bearing a coarse bag, which she earnestly desired 
 to have filled with materials for food, if nothing 
 more than potatoes. The story of her home was 
 enough. Our provost marshal, who kept our oaths 
 for us, told her of the reqvdrement, and demanded 
 this acknowledgment, asking her to kiss the book in 
 token. To both of these suggestions she opposed 
 a very firm determination. Indeed, considering 
 the aspect of these two respective objects, I would 
 not have blamed her if she preferred to reverse the 
 directions, swear to the book and kiss the officer. 
 Her charming and coquettish ways, indicating a 
 habit of easy conquest, caused an esthetic efflores- 
 cence among the emotional susceptibilities of this 
 personage, and so melted the firm face of his official 
 habit, that he did not consider himself wholly fit 
 for duty, and came to me stating the case, and 
 asking if he might bring the reluctant petitioner 
 for a hearing before me. Of course I assented, 
 notwithstanding his remark that she was considered 
 
294 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 the belle of Dinwiddle, and the fact that I was 
 not then on the superannuated list myself. Her 
 graceful bearing as she entered my tent, composed 
 manner of address, and I must add her beauty 
 as she adjusted herself to our courtesies, left me no 
 doubt of her status, — ^whatever might be my own. 
 My guests took two camp chairs placed at an angle 
 from my center of about sixty .degrees, which I 
 believe is the frost angle, perhaps salutary here. 
 I could not but be amused at their mutual bearing 
 in stating the case in which they were presumed to 
 be antagonist parties. It woiild be an infelicity in 
 language to say my yotmg officer was demoralized. 
 On the contrary, all the moral emotions — ^that is 
 to say, the spiritual — ^were at a sublime exaltation. 
 But it was a comical sight when in their presenta- 
 tion of the case, they exchanged glances. Her air 
 was that of an injured party, and he the aggressor. 
 At every soft impeachment his color rose to the 
 Jacqueminot. He was a handsome fellow; there 
 were united states to which she might be ready to 
 take the oath of allegiance, where the vitalizing 
 function in testimony of loyal devotion would not 
 be sustained by a book. 
 
 The captivating client stated her case with 
 Ciceronian skiU. She said it was unreasonable to 
 require her to entertain a feeling of duty and 
 allegiance to the "North, " while her brothers and 
 all her manly friends were in the Southern service; 
 and that it was cruel, if not more deeply immoral, 
 to demand the form of such a declaration when she 
 could not give it heartily or trvily; moreover, to 
 
The Return of the Army 295 
 
 take advantage of her distress to demand what was 
 immoral and impossible, did not accord with her 
 ideal of chivalrous gentlemen. 
 
 "My dear young lady, you intend to live in this 
 country, do you not?" began the not altogether 
 self-commanding commander, endeavoring to re- 
 tain his official importance and personal composure. 
 
 "That is my present intention, " was the demure 
 reply, which allowed a little "leeway" for the 
 possibilities now sublimating the faculties of the 
 ingenuous youth, her duty-bound opponent. 
 
 "Then you will have to live under the authority 
 of the United States of America," was the next 
 link in the inexorable logic prepared to compel our 
 young rebel into the compliance necessary for our 
 consciences to yield to our hearts in granting what- 
 ever she should ask. 
 
 " I shall obey the laws of my State, " she astutely 
 rejoins. 
 
 "Your more immediate personal and domestic 
 plans can be sanctioned and consummated, no 
 doubt, under the laws of Virginia," proceeds the 
 prosy, didactic court of final resort, "but Virginia 
 is not at present exercising her functions as a State 
 anywhere; and under the jurisdiction of what you 
 wUl allow to be the de facto power of the United 
 States, in order to enjoy its advantages and recipro- 
 cate its good win, you will be required to declare 
 yourself its loyal citizen, and not its enemy." 
 
 "If to grant my humble and needful request," 
 replies the indomitable Portia, "you require me 
 to swear that I will bear true allegiance to the 
 
296 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 United States, when by her actual power she can 
 compel me to do so or withdraw her protection, 
 I am ready to say, not that I do, but that I will, 
 bear such allegiance. " 
 
 "Do you say now that you wUl do so, — ^the 
 'wUr meaning not simply in future time, but with 
 full purpose?" interrogates the dazed General. 
 
 "I wUl take that oath," is the gracious conces- 
 sion; and the court is able to take a conscience- 
 approving breath. 
 
 The fair conqueror, triumphant in her refutation 
 of the slanderous pronotincement that "the woman 
 who deliberates is lost," steps forward, bends 
 over the book deftly covered with a fold of her. 
 soft handkerchief, — ^both held in the trembUng 
 hand of the young officer, who balances himself 
 with such extremely Delsartian proneness that he 
 does not seem to fear it if he should fall completely 
 forward, — ^and the saving oath is taken. With 
 what mental reservation, or spiritual committals, 
 the defective records of earth do not show. There 
 was, however, a lingering twilight of the transaction 
 in the fact that there was immediately a daily 
 unaccountable diminution among the finer delica- 
 cies of our private headquarters' mess-stores; 
 and that on moonlight evenings there was as item 
 of the report, "present but not accounted for," 
 concerning the horse and also the material personal- 
 ity of our provost marshal; both of whom had 
 undoubtedly passed into a state which science 
 taking refuge in electrical metaphysics denominates 
 "the fovirth dimension." 
 
The Return of the Army 297 
 
 We were kept very busy. Even the relief of 
 duty from Sutherland's to Petersburg left us 
 seventeen miles to care for, and enlarging duties. 
 Our numbers were increasing rapidly. Not only 
 were many men belonging to our command recalled 
 from detached service to their regiments but 
 eighteen hundred convalescents and recruits be- 
 longing to the Fifth Corps reported themselves at 
 Sutherland's to be cared for there and thence dis- 
 tributed to their proper commands. The troops 
 and garrisons at City Point were also assigned to 
 the corps and finally taken up in Ayres' Division. 
 We certainly had all the responsibility we could 
 well exercise; and we had now a pretty solid and 
 efficient corps, which we took pleasure in keeping 
 up in discipline and character, and in as good spirits 
 as possible. Near the end of the month notice 
 came to us that we were to prepare to move and to 
 start for Richmond on the 2d of May. 
 
 It may be a trace of that curious paradox in the 
 human heart which makes us love those who have 
 been a care and trouble to us, that the thought of 
 leaving these stricken and helpless people brought 
 as much sorrow to some of us as the thought of 
 going home did of joy. Indeed what is home in 
 deepest truth, but the place where by oxnr thought 
 and toil and tender care we are able to promote the 
 well-being of others? Is not that satisfaction love's 
 best support and toU's best reward? We are made 
 and meant to care. And where we have given of 
 our best, even if tina vailing, there the heart holds 
 a certain treasure. There was here, too, a pleasant 
 
298 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 cotinterpart of this sentiment when the people 
 among whom we had exercised this autocratic 
 power learned of our near departure. Our domina- 
 tion had been but for a little while but our points 
 of contact with the people had been many and 
 close. And we had made our rule of conduct 
 towards each other such as was befitting those who 
 were to live together as fellow-citizens in peace and 
 good wiU. 
 
 On one of those last fair April mornings I 
 received a formal visit from a deputation whose 
 personal appearance, bearing, and manner wore a 
 solemnity almost religious in suggestion, but be- 
 tokening high character and sincere purpose. They 
 announce themselves as a delegation appointed by 
 the citizens of Dinwiddle County to tender me 
 a pubHc dinner in testimony of what they were 
 pleased to characterize as judicious management 
 and kindly spirit in dealing with the confused 
 elements and powers of that difiScult situation. 
 While a certain incongruity between the spiritual 
 motive and the material constituence of their 
 proffer might be conducive to a smile, yet there 
 were elements in its seriousness which commanded 
 sentiments even deeper than respect. However 
 much their approving feeUng may have overpassed 
 their material means of expression, .the proffer 
 sprang from generous and noble sentiments exer- 
 cised under trying conditions and was a testimony 
 which it was an honor to receive. Literal accept- 
 ance of the compliment, however, was not to be 
 thought of. But all the more my response should 
 
The Return of the Army 299 
 
 show sincere appreciation and even more than 
 common courtesy. "Gentlemen," I replied, "I 
 deeply appreciate your expression of approval and 
 good will in respect to my conduct of affairs. Your 
 personal regard I fully reciprocate. But you must 
 pardon me. I am aware of the conditions in your 
 homes. Let me say then that if you have any sur- 
 plus in your store of food to be disposed of, I beg 
 you will give it to your own suffering people, and 
 not to me. I confess to a certain pain in leaving 
 you. I shall ever think of you with respect and af- 
 fection, and not without solicitude. The preserva- 
 tion of this Union is for the benefit of all its citizens ; 
 and I trust will soon result in one of deeper effect 
 in drawing our hearts together as never before. " 
 
 They responded in words I shall not undertake 
 tQ record. 
 
 The order of march for May ist reversed the 
 order of the division camps. Ayres was to start 
 early in the morning, followed by the artillery and 
 trains. On his reaching Black's and White's 
 Crawford was to follow Ayres, and when the two 
 reached my division I was to follow them, if they 
 passed me. The corps would thus be gathering 
 itself up as it marched. Moreover, by this order 
 the whole corps would, so to speak, pass itself in 
 review. It was a sort of "break from the left to 
 march to the right." All these divisions did, 
 however, that day was to reach my headquarters 
 at Wilson's Station, where instead of having to 
 break camp, I had the pleasure of receiving several 
 honored guests, especially General Griffin. 
 
300 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 At 5.30 on the morning of the 2d, I began to take 
 up my troops and my part in the march; the Third 
 Division followed mine, then the headquarters 
 train, the Second Division, the artillery, and the 
 ambulances and general train. By night we had 
 reached Sutherland's, seventeen miles from my left 
 to my right, and the whole corps was massed. 
 At six o'clock on the 3d the corps took up its 
 march along the Cox Road towards Petersburg. 
 That was an interesting and picturesque march. 
 The successive breaking of camps, all seasonably to 
 fall into the column in due order; the tents struck 
 regiment by regiment, the little shelter-tents at will, 
 the pieces folded up and packed in each man's 
 knapsack; then at a bugle-note down go the officer's 
 tents, with the funeral rosettes still on their gable- 
 fronts, disappearing at a breath, as the dissolving 
 of a dream; and the column comes out, colors 
 draped in mourning, and the crape on arm and 
 sword-hilt. It had a certain majesty of tone, — 
 that returning army of august memories. A solemn 
 march it was, — ^past so many fields from which 
 visions arose linking life with the immortal'. First 
 past the Five Forks not far away, at the Ford 
 Station where a month before we had forced 
 back Fitzhugh Lee and caught the last train out 
 of Petersburg under Confederate auspices; then 
 Sutherland's, ten miles farther, which we were so 
 strangely prevented from making our own on the 
 31st of March, and where the gallant Miles two 
 days afterwards made a maelstrom of the out- 
 rushing currents of Lee's broken army; then pass- 
 
The Return of the Army 301 
 
 ing the focal point where three roads crossing made 
 a six-pointed star, behind Burgess' Mill, and the 
 Quaker Road where my stubborn little First 
 Brigade made the costly overture of the last 
 campaign; then moving along that well-worn road 
 between the Boydton Plank and the Appomattox 
 so graven in our brain, so grave in history. All 
 forsaken and silent now, the thundering salients 
 and flaming crests since our Sixth and Ninth Corps 
 and Gibbon with his men from the James burst 
 over them in overwhelming wave. That silent, 
 upheaved earth, those hidden covered ways, — 
 what did they speak of gloomy patience, and 
 hardening fortitude and costly holding, — ^the far- 
 stretching, dull red crests and trenches which 
 splendid manhood, we thought mistaken, had 
 made a wall of adamant against us during aU the 
 long, dreary, unavailing siege; and as we look 
 across the farther edge, the grim bastions of Fort 
 Mahone and Fort Sedgwick, — ^not unfitly named 
 in soldier speech "Fort Hell" and "Fort Dam- 
 nation," — ^the latter front carried a year before 
 by the dark and desperate charge of my old 
 veteran brigade; the forlorn Balaklava onset 
 thereafter, and terrible repulse before the enemy's 
 main entrenchments, — ^that darkest day of darkest 
 year, 1864; and farther on, amidst the funereal 
 pines, the spot where I was laid on boughs tearfxilly 
 broken for what was thought my last bed, but 
 where, too. Grant touched me with the accolade 
 and woke new life. 
 
 We passed also the gloomy remnants of the great 
 
302 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 outworks — ^well known to us — ^where our com- 
 rades of the Second, Sixth, and Ninth Corps and 
 the Army of the James won imperishable fame by 
 desperate valor; and farther on we passed with 
 averted gaze the Crater of the Mine of fearful 
 memory. 
 
 And now we enter Petersburg, filled with thoughts 
 that fleck the sunshine; pondering the paradox of 
 human loss which is gain, — ^not jubilant but firm- 
 stepped, reverently, as treading over graves. 
 
 Warren was in the city. He had aUghted here, 
 where with corps flag in hand he had passed like a 
 meteor infantry and cavalry and leaped the rebel 
 breastworks down into the faces of the astonished 
 foe, and Sheridan sent him otherwhere. He was 
 commanding this city now, — ^promotion down- 
 ward; but down is up for half the world. GrifiEin 
 could not pass him without fitting recognition; the 
 men of the Fifth Corps, who had seen him in their 
 front from the beginning, could not pass him now, 
 voiceless themselves as he. General Griffin had 
 sent Warren word that the corps wotild like to give 
 him the salute of honor as they marched through 
 the city. He accepted, and placed himself with his 
 wife and some members of his staff in the balcony 
 of the Bolingbroke Hotel, while the corps passed 
 before him in review. But the regulations for such 
 ceremony were traversed by strange signs not 
 written in that zodiac. Drums ruffled, bands 
 played, colors dipped, officers saluted with their 
 swords ; but for the men it was impossible to hold 
 the "carry," or keep the touch of elbow and the 
 
The Return of the Army 303 
 
 guide right. Up turned the worn, bronzed faces; 
 up went the poor old caps; out rang the cheers 
 from manly hearts along the Fifth Corps column; — 
 one half the numbers, old and new together, that 
 on this very day a year ago mustered on the banks 
 of the Rapidan, their youthful forms resplendent 
 as the onlooking sun. One half the corps had gone, 
 passing the death-streams of all Virginia's rivers; 
 two hundred miles of furrowed earth and the 
 infinite of heaven held each their own. Warren, 
 too, had gone in spirit, never to rise, with deeper 
 wound than any who had gone before. 
 
 There was much to interest us in this city we had 
 held "so near and yet so far"; long gazing or 
 fitfully glancing at the hazard of our lives, where it 
 lay glistening in morning light or wrapped in svm- 
 set splendor, or perchance shrouded in cannon- 
 smoke, or lurid canopy of exploding mine, with 
 phantasmagory human and superhuman. But we 
 pressed through without stopping, and camped 
 that night five or six miles out on the Richmond 
 turnpike. 
 
 On the fourth we had a fine, smooth road before 
 us, and marched briskly, having the right of way. 
 We took a little nooning at Fort Darling on Drury's 
 Bluff, and spent most of our time in admiring the 
 strength and beauty of these works, proving the 
 skill of the engineers, educated at our West Point, 
 admiring still more the frankness of the strong 
 soldier whose home was there, declaring that the 
 appeal they had so resolutely taken was decided 
 against them, and now there must be but one flag. 
 
304 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 At evening we reached Manchester, a pleasant little 
 town opposite Richmond where we closed up to be 
 ready to pass through Richmond the next day in 
 ceremonial order. But a heavy rain kept us rather 
 quiet all day, except for some who with difficulty 
 got permission to go over and visit the famed city 
 which the newspapers had ordered us "on to" 
 since 1861. Our camp made slender shelter, ex- 
 pecting but the "tarry of a night." I had my 
 headquarters in the front yard — ^not the house — • 
 of a courteous Virginia gentleman of the old school, 
 who seemed to like my name, which if braced with 
 an aristocratic y in the last syllable stood high he 
 said in that section. Much might have happened 
 if my ancestors had not prided themselves in 
 straight Hnes and in not striking below the belt. 
 So they held to the simple iota in writing out their 
 long name. Therefore I cotild not claim honors 
 and he waived the demand, offering a fresh mint 
 julep to settle accounts, but this exception did not 
 prove the rule. 
 
 The Second Corps had now come by way of 
 Amelia Court House and the Danville Road, and 
 on the morning of the sixth we prepared to pass 
 through Richmond. These two corps were all; the 
 Ninth had been set loose again from our army and 
 was sent to Alexandria; the Sixth had been sent 
 back to the Danville Road to take care of the North 
 Carolina communications. Our corps was formed 
 in num.erical order of divisions; this gave me the 
 head of the column although the junior commander. 
 The artillery followed the infantry. No other 
 
The Return of the Army 305 
 
 wheeled vehicles were allowed in the column o 
 review; but they were sent by another way, to 
 rejoin the troops outside the city on the road to 
 Hanover. We crossed the James on the upper 
 pontoon bridge. This gave a glimpse of Libby and 
 Belle Isle prisons, which I had always carefully 
 instructed my men never to allow themselves to 
 get into, but to prefer death, — ^by which desperate 
 tactics they sometimes saved their lives, cutting 
 their way out of capture like madmen. But these 
 buildings carried heavy thoughts to some among 
 us, which ministered to "silence in the ranks." 
 Orders had been given to the Twenty-fourth Corps 
 to pay us some attention; accordingly we passed 
 in review along the front of that corps, — General 
 Halleck 9,nd General Meade being in their line. 
 These troops had instructions to present arms to 
 every general officer by regiments in succession, 
 and afterwards to stand at "order arms." We 
 were about as threadbare a set of fellows as was 
 not usually seen, to use the French idiom. But we 
 were clean and straight. We bore ourselves with 
 greatest military precision, — ^that was something 
 we could do, — ^mostly out of pride. Looks go for a 
 good deal, especially when you have a previous 
 reputation to meet somehow or other. The 
 Twenty-fourth Corps, paraded in our honor, gave 
 us hearty greeting; quite transcending orders and 
 regulations. We had not met since side by side 
 we had double-quicked up to Sheridan's hard- 
 pressed front at Appomattox Court House; and 
 when their manual dropped from the "present" 
 
3o6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 to the "order, " there was a demonstration running 
 along their Kne in which manly hearts took com- 
 mand, the contagion of which disturbed otir perfect 
 military demeanor. 
 
 It was a city of strange contrasts then; famous 
 always for its beauty and the nobleness of its 
 public buildings. But the incendiary had done 
 niuch to mar the picttire: the charred ruins ovlt 
 route of march could not wholly conceal telling 
 either of desperate loyalty unwilling that so rich a 
 trophy should fall into our hands; or else of some 
 renegades, thinking all was lost, giving way to 
 general disgust with aU creation. The houses of 
 Lee and of Davis received much attention, — ^the 
 latter apparently already pillaged. The famous 
 statue of Washington stood solitary in the square, 
 seeming to rebuke somebody, — not us, we con- 
 fidently believed. In the streets and dooryards 
 all was confusion, like a grand "May moving- 
 day" — ^furniture scattered and piled as if having 
 nowhere to go or stay; papers flying loose every- 
 where; Confederate money cheap, — ^to be had 
 almost for the asking from the ebony runners 
 flashing their white teeth and eyes in joy of our 
 coming. Multitudes of good citizens, however, 
 lined the streets; while here and there some closed 
 doors and shrouded windows showed where grief 
 or bitterness was holding its despair. 
 
 It was rather hard for our men to be held in such 
 strict order, and, after passing in review, to be 
 pushed on as if still in pursuit of Lee. Yet on we 
 pressed, out through the fortifications of Richmond, 
 
The Return of the Army 307 
 
 and not inward, whither we had so long striven; 
 but now when we saw their terrible strength, we 
 were not wholly sorry that we satisfied ovirselves 
 with the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold 
 Harbor, and took a wide sweep to the south- 
 ern flank of those entrenchments rather than 
 "fight it out on that line all siimmer." Out 
 towards the old battlefields we drew, crossing the 
 baleful Chickahominy and the unforgotten Toto- 
 potomoy, scarcely pausing until ten o'clock at 
 night, when we were halted, after a singularly hard 
 march, at "Peake's Turn Out" on the Virginia 
 Central Railroad, not far from Hanover Court 
 House. This was familiar ground for the Fifth 
 Corps. Here it was that our First Division in the 
 ardor of its youth made the gallant fight three years 
 before, and where especially our Second Maine 
 under the chivalrous Roberts proved the quality 
 of its soldiership and manhood. 
 
 In the darkness of establishing bivouac, I heard 
 some mutterings, as I had seen some sour looks 
 before, among the men, seeming to hold me re- 
 sponsible for the hardships of the twenty-mile 
 forced march, because I had the head of the column 
 and was supposed to set the pace. But they did not 
 tmderstand that our camps as well as otir routes 
 were strictly appointed as to time and place by 
 orders from high headquarters. If I could have 
 appointed- the routes and hours of that homeward 
 march, I would not have been governed so much 
 by considerations of "the shortest distance between 
 two points" on the earth, as of a line running 
 
3o8 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 tortuously and deep-chambered through soldiers' 
 hearts, and darkly graven in all the homes of the 
 land. We had to pass very near many storied 
 spots; and one day more for the whole march 
 would have allowed our men the somber satisfac- 
 tion of reviewing the fields of lost battles, which 
 have their place, also, in making up life's full 
 accoimt. Broken threads are sometimes well 
 worth picking up. If this is mere sentiment, I 
 confess to it; outlawed I dare say in scientific 
 circles, but not therefore banished from the make- 
 up of manhood. If discipline means bracing the 
 heart and will as well as the body it is part of good 
 discipline to give the soldier satisfaction for his 
 sacrifice, if only to see the ground where he 
 fought in darkness and blind obedience, and gave 
 his best even though in defeat, and perhaps, by 
 such recognition, giving him part in the continuity 
 of great endeavor. 
 
 Other orders of being also share this halt at the 
 bridge of life and death. I give place to a night- 
 episode. At about midnight when the tired camp 
 was still, the sentinel in front of my bivouac spoke 
 nervously, saying there was something strange 
 going on about my horse not far away in rear of us. 
 He had been hastily tethered there amidst a little 
 growth of scrubby pines, so near, and the place so 
 quiet, there seemed to be no need of a guard. 
 The boy who cared for him had dropped down near 
 by in a swoon of sleep. I rose and went out myself ; 
 and before I reached him my foot crushed through 
 the breast-bones of a body half buried by the fallen 
 
The Return of the Army 309 
 
 pine-cones and needles so long undisturbed, now 
 gone back mostly ashes to ashes. I found that the 
 horse, pawing the earth within the scope of his 
 picket-rope, had rolled out two skulls and scattered 
 the bones of bodies he had unearthed, and was gazing 
 at the white skulls as if lost in doubt ; now and then 
 snorting to call others to solve the mystery, or sway- 
 ing at his tether as if to get away himself. It was 
 a weird, uncanny scene: the straggling, uncom- 
 panionable pines; the night brooding still and chill; 
 black lowering clouds, now massing, now rifting, 
 disclosing, then shutting out of sight, the white 
 skulls mocking life. The horse was not easily paci- 
 fied, — not until I had gathered up the menacing 
 skulls and the outljdng limbs too, and laid them 
 where I saw glimmering amidst the dusky debris 
 of the pines other bones as if adrift on a Sargasso 
 sea, and showed him that I was not afraid. 
 
 In the morning the men got to looking around 
 among the bodies and relics, and by initials cut 
 into the breast-plates or other marks or tokens 
 identified the remnants of bodies of comrades long 
 left among the missing. As we were not to move 
 until ten o'clock, they asked permission to gather 
 up these mournful remnants and pack them in the 
 empty cracker-boxes in our supply trains, to be 
 sent to friends who would gladly cherish even such 
 tokens of the fate of the unretuming brave. I was 
 glad to grant this and to instruct the wagoners to 
 take especial care of these relics on the road or in 
 camp. And so the strange colimm set forth bear- 
 ing in its train that burden of unlost belongings, as 
 
3IO The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Moses coming up out of Egypt through the wilder- 
 ness of the Red Sea, bearing with him the bones of 
 Joseph the well-beloved. 
 
 Ayres led that day; we had the rear of the col- 
 umn, with the artillery. Passing through Hanover 
 Court House, and crossing the Pamunkey, we 
 made twelve miles march and camped at Concord 
 Church, not far from our battlefield of the North 
 Anna and Jericho Mills. On the 8th, the Third 
 Division led, the First following. We crossed the 
 Mattapony and bivouacked at Milford, south of 
 Bowliilg Green, at 5 p.m., having marched about 
 fifteen miles. On the 9th, we moved at 7 a.m., 
 passing through Bowling Green, which wakened 
 for me thrilling reminiscences of a rear-guard fight, 
 and crossing the Massaponax we encamped near 
 Fredericksburg not far from our old battlefields of 
 1862. We made this long march more easily 
 because of the fine Bowling Green Pike that served 
 us a good part of the way. Although we had 
 marched twenty miles, some of the men of the 
 First Division could not resist the opportunity to 
 visit the storied Marye's Heights, up which they 
 had charged, — ^the fifth line they had seen go on to 
 be swallowed up in flame, and cut level with the 
 earth the moment it reached the fatal crest before 
 the stone wall, — ^and holding flat to earth, were able 
 to be drawn off only under the blackness of a rainy 
 midnight, the last to leave the front line, to catch 
 the last pontoon bridge below the city just as it 
 was swung to the safe shore. 
 
 In the morning we crossed again the Rappahan- 
 
The Return of the Army 311 
 
 nock — ^two years and a half later; and what years, 
 and with what changes of men ! — and "moved up 
 abreast of the city, whose slopes on the morning 
 of that other crossing we saw through misty eyes, 
 trampled to gory mire, and so flecked with bodies 
 of our comrades that the whole heights shone blue. 
 The artillery leading and we in rear of the column, 
 — ^thoughts lingering too, — ^we passed through our 
 old camping ground of 1862, where first we learned 
 how little we knew how to take care of ourselves or 
 of those committed to our care, but where we 
 learned also under the discipline of the accom- 
 plished Ames how to behave ourselves in battle. 
 Visions more than sad passed with us. Hooker 
 a;nd the Grand Divisions, and the grand reviews; 
 the tournaments of the reorganized cavalry; the 
 sword presentations with their afterglow; the 
 "Ladies' Days" — Princess Salm-Salm the Val- 
 kyrie, the witching Washington beUes, strange new 
 colors flying, sweet forms grouped around tent 
 doors, lithe in the saddle; days so bright and nights 
 so silver toned, — lenesgue sub noctem susurri, — 
 where are you, forms and souls, men and women, 
 where in these days of stem rejoicing triumph, 
 but so forlorn? Then days of the Adversary: the 
 Mud March; tragic ChanceUorsviUe; and dreary 
 rettim to dull Stoneman's Switch and dolorous 
 smallpox hospital — ^they, too, stood for something 
 as prelude to the Gettysburg campaign. This is 
 the procession that passes as we pass. Pensively 
 we crossed the Aquia Creek, old debouchure from 
 Washington of all that food for death, and of the 
 
312 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 spectral gayeties of what is called life. Plunging 
 now into lower levels we found a hard road to 
 travel, and crossing the Choppawamsic and Quan- 
 tico, we went down with the sun in dreary bivouac 
 at Dumfries. 
 
 The roads were bad; pressing feet and heavy 
 hoofs and cutting wheels had made them worse. 
 General Humphreys, following with the Second 
 Corps, thoughtful ever for his men, and as an 
 accomplished engineer scorning such crude con- 
 ditions, sent out two entire divisions to repair the 
 road before he wotild undertake to move, and 
 even then was forced to take anotherroute. In 
 our movement on this morning of the nth of 
 May General Griffin leading out with the artillery 
 sent the pioneers of the Third Division following 
 to move with the artillery and help it along, while 
 sending the pioneers of the First and Second Divi- 
 sions to attend the trains which followed. One 
 half the ambtilances followed their respective 
 divisions, and there was sore need of them. The 
 memory of this day and night march will last its 
 participants a lifetime, of which I have no doubt 
 these experiences shortened many. The roads 
 rough and ragged; the hills steep and as it were 
 cross-furrowed; the valleys swamps; the track a 
 trap of mire. We toiled painftdly and patiently 
 along, testing that formula of the chiefest virtue, — 
 the charity that "beareth all things; believeth all 
 things; hopeth all things; endureth all things," 
 In the middle of the afternoon a heavy rainstorm 
 swept over us, opening with terrific summons of 
 
The Return of the Army 313 
 
 thunder and lightning, sky and earth meeting. 
 I chanced to be at that moment on the summit of a 
 very high hill, from which I could see the whole 
 corps winding its caravan with dromedary pa- 
 tience. The first lightning-bolt nearly stunned 
 me. I saw its forerunner flashing along the cannon 
 far ahead and illuminating Crawford's column 
 with unearthly glare; and turning quickly towards 
 my own I could see the whole black column 
 struggling on and Ayres a mile behind urging and 
 cheering his men with condensed reserve energies 
 all aUve; when this ever-recurrent pulse of flame 
 leaped along the writhing column like a river of 
 fire. It looked to me as if the men had bayonets 
 fixed, the points of intense light flew so sharp from 
 the muzzles sloping above the shoulders. Sud- 
 denly an explosion like a battery of shrapnel fell 
 right between our divisions. An orderly came 
 galloping up to me, with word that one of the 
 ambulances was struck, killing the horses and the 
 driver, and stunning the poor fellows who, unable 
 to keep up with the rushing column, had sought 
 this friendly aid. It was a mile away from me, but 
 I knew Ayres close following would see the right 
 thing done till my orders came. I sent instructions 
 for the stricken men to be cared for, and for the 
 following forage trains to take along the disabled 
 ambtilance. We were bringing along one dead 
 body already, besides the strange freight of rescued 
 fragments packed in the bread-boxes. This was 
 the body of Lieutenant Wood, of the 20th Maine, 
 killed in his tent by a careless wagoner's unau- 
 
314 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 thorized discharge of a musket some way off the 
 day before, — ^such an act as some call accident; I 
 did not treat it as such. 
 
 The storm and turmoil of the elements kept on all 
 the afternoon; and all our company, man and 
 beast, were drenched and sodden, — ^body and soul. 
 In such plight we crossed the Qccaquan, and in 
 four hours more we "stopped for refreshments" 
 on soggy ground and in pitchy darkness about 
 a mile below Fairfax Station on the Orange & 
 Alexandria Railroad. Then began the orgies of 
 which five elements were the factors, the human, 
 and air, earth, water, firey-^the last deemed 
 divine in Grecian legend, but difficult to har- 
 monize that night with Promethean will or human 
 need. 
 
 What cannot be helped must be borne. Well- 
 doing is not a smooth road and its rewards do not 
 instantly appear. But good heart, nevertheless ! 
 Dear poor Tom Pinch knew all about it. " ' Wher's 
 the pudding?'" said Tom, "for he was cutting his 
 jokes, Tom was. " 
 
 Why we were marched so hard and made to 
 suffer such discomforts on that homeward journey 
 no one of us could understand. Thoughtless men, 
 as is usual, laid it to their officers; and that is 
 perhaps not unjust as their short reasoning went. 
 It is great part of an officer's duty to take care of 
 his men. But there is always strong motive for 
 officers to be reasonable; those who march with 
 their men are not likely to be cruel to them. In 
 the saddle hour upon hour, day after day, march- 
 
The Return of the Army 315 
 
 ing is almost as wearisome for rider as for footman. 
 The balancing mental medicine for the rider is that 
 he can get from point to point quicker, and get 
 over more ground in a given time. Keeping pace 
 with obstructed and slow-moving infantry is hard 
 for the horsemen too. 
 
 But here we were, marched as hard as if we were a 
 forlorn hope, or a Lucknow relief, hurled in for 
 life and death — only going to be mustered out. 
 It was, I suppose, a meastire of economy, to save 
 the expense of maintaining an army not now 
 actively engaged, and so far from the principal 
 base of supplies, and to shorten the days before us 
 for the final discharge. It seemed as if somebody 
 was as anxious now to be rid of us as ever before 
 to get us to the front. That is a fair inference 
 from the orders that came to the commander of 
 our army; and his orders were no doubt the result 
 of this urgency. We commanders in the Fifth 
 Corps had not so much to say about it as the men 
 had; and what we did say is not written, and 
 wotild have been of little avail for them if spoken 
 aloud, and not calculated to put us in pleasant 
 relations with those above us, including what 
 Sterne would call "the recording angel." 
 
 We moved once more at 9 o'clock on the morning 
 of the 12th, the corps in the order of its divisions, 
 followed by the artillery and trains. At Fairfax 
 Court House we received orders to take the Colvim- 
 bia Pike and passing Falls Church Station to go 
 into permanent camp on Arlington Heights. This 
 brought us near the ground where our First 
 
3i6 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Division, now comprising all that were left of the 
 original Fifth Corps, had its station after the battle 
 of Bull Run Second, and whence we started early 
 in September for the Antietam campaign. A new 
 procession of associations, farther reaching than 
 those before, thronged our minds and spirits. 
 We had not seen this ground since those earlier 
 troubled days; and what had been given us to 
 traverse since, and forms once with us, now taken 
 away, all rose before us in tumultuous phantasies. 
 Here was Lee's home, too; and we gazed at it 
 earnestly, wondering if it was true only in poetry 
 
 " That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 Poor, great-hearted Lee; what was his place in the 
 regenerated country? 
 
 And for us: we were returning from our part in 
 the redemption of the nation's life, — ^the vindica- 
 tion of its honor and authority; we were summoned 
 to the capital to report the completion of this ser- 
 vice and this trust; to lay down our arms and 
 colors, emblems of costly sacrifice and great de- 
 liverance; to receive thanks, perhaps; but for 
 best reward the consciousness that what we had 
 lost and what we had won had passed into the 
 nation's peace; our service into her mastery, our 
 worth into her well-being, our life into her life. 
 
 Now the satisfied earth, returning its excess of 
 rain heavenward in canopy of mists, overspread us 
 with shadow, shutting us in with ourselves. But 
 just as we reached the heights, the clouds with- 
 
The Return of the Army 317 
 
 drew their veil, and the broad sunlight lay upon the 
 resplendent city; highest the dome of the delivered 
 Capitol, and nearest, it seemed, the White House, 
 home of Lincoln's mighty wrestle and immortal 
 triumph. Around us some were welcoming with 
 cheers; but for our part, weighted with thought, 
 we went through our accustomed motions mechan- 
 ically, in a great silence. The sun, transfiguring 
 for a moment our closing ranks, went down in 
 glorious promise for the morrow, — Cleaving us 
 there to ourselves again, on the banks of the river 
 whose name and fame we bore, flowing in darkness 
 past us, as from dream to dream. 
 
M' 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ENCAMPMENT 
 
 ANY circumstances tended to make our 
 camp on Arlington Heights an ideal one. 
 We well knew that its material existence 
 was to be brief; but its image in thought was to 
 hold for us the traces of momentous history and 
 to remain the most visible token of the probation 
 under which our personal characters had been 
 moulded. We took therefore a certain pride in 
 this last encampment; we looked upon this as the 
 graduation day of our Alma Mater. The disturb- 
 ing incidents which had forbidden us ever to make 
 a perfect camp were now overpassed, and it 
 afforded some satisfaction to show that we had 
 kept alive a scientific knowledge and skill we had 
 never fairly put into practice, and cherished ideals 
 of soldierly living, which though never projected 
 on the earthly plane, may have somehow left an 
 indwelling impress in our characters. 
 
 There was now an abundance of camp equipage. 
 Tents were distributed and established in accord- 
 ance with ideal regulations. And the extensive 
 preparations for final accounting and muster-out 
 
 318 
 
The Encampment 319 
 
 justified an extra number of great hospital tents 
 for crowding clerical work. These were a con- 
 venience and incentive for social gatherings at 
 hours so disposable. We hsLd many visitors also, 
 to whom we were glad to show civil and military 
 courtesies. 
 
 To increase the magnitude and also the compli- 
 cations of this gathering, Sherman's army came 
 up on the 20th of May and encamped on the 
 same side of the river but lower down towards 
 Alexandria, — a situation not so conspicuous nor 
 otherwise desirable as otirs, a circimistance which 
 had place in some further incidents of the field 
 in the War for the Union. These troops were not 
 the whole of Sherman's great Army of the West. 
 The part of it which he brought here comprised 
 many high names and titles, as well as stalwart 
 men: the old Army of the Tennessee (once Mc- 
 Pherson's, later Howard's, now under Logan), 
 composed of the Fifteenth Corps, Hazen command- 
 ing (Sherman's old corps), and the Seventeenth 
 Corps vuider Blair, together with the Army of 
 Georgia, commanded now by Slocum, composed 
 of the Fourteenth Corps (part of Thomas' old 
 Army of the Cumberland), now under Davis, and 
 the Twentieth Corps under Mower, — ^this latter 
 composed of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps of 
 the Army of the Potomac sent to Sherman after 
 Gettysburg, with Howard and Slocum, That part 
 of Sherman's old army known as the Army of the 
 Ohio, now commanded by Schofield, and made up 
 of the Twenty-third Corps under Cox and the 
 
320 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Tenth Corps under Terry, — of Fort Fisher fame, — 
 was not brought to this encamprQent. 
 
 The fame of these men excited our curiosity and 
 wish to know them better. Although not much 
 interchange of visiting was allowed, we started out 
 with very pleasant relations, — ^which tinf ortunately 
 not being very deep-rooted soon withered. Still 
 we admired them at a distance, and had it in 
 our own hands to keep up that kind of a friend- 
 ship. I am speaking now for our men of the 
 rank and file, whose good nature would stand a 
 good deal. 
 
 Within our own camp things were harmonious 
 and more than that. The Second and Fifth Corps 
 grew nearer and dearer to each other. One pleasing 
 incident in my command may be worthy of record. 
 The officers of my division desired to present to 
 Major-General Griffin, our corps commander, a 
 worthy token of the deep regard in which he was 
 held in this division so honorably known as his in 
 the last campaign, and with which he had been 
 conspicuously associated since the heroic days of 
 Fitz-John Porter. A Maltese cross was decided 
 on as the basis for this memorial, and the design 
 for it being entrusted to me by the committee in 
 charge, was sent to Tiffany of New York for 
 execution. It was our battle flag in miniature, — 
 the Red Maltese cross on a white field, the colors 
 enameled on a gold ground, the cross bordered 
 with small diamonds, and in the center a diamond 
 worth a thousand dollars. 
 
 Orders were now out for the grand review of our 
 
The Encampment 321 
 
 army on the 23d. of May, and we decided to hold 
 our presentation ceremonies on the evening before 
 this, when so many old comrades and distinguished 
 visitors were near by to join us. It is needless to 
 say ever3rthing was ordered on a scale worthy of 
 such occasion. Four large hospital tents were put 
 together cathedral-like for our service, and clusters 
 of smaller tents were grouped around, like chapels, 
 to serve as offices and dressing-rooms. It had not 
 the magnificence of array and grandeur of titled 
 personages of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but 
 the sentiment and soul that animated the greeting 
 and farewell were of a fellowship more than royal. 
 Beauty and chivalry were not lacking; nobility of 
 soul made high presence. Soft simimer airs were 
 stirring all things to tremulous pulse. The scene 
 without enwrapped our senses, and that within 
 thrilled our hearts. Soon through the trembling 
 hush the martial bugle rang out the "Assembly of 
 Trumpeters." Then flowed forth from a sym- 
 phony of trumpets that orison of the setting sun, 
 "The Retreat," with final cadence of the "Sun- 
 set Gun," answering afar. 
 
 Now the shadows descended, and the deep stars, 
 brooding close over the night, lent the immortal 
 presence. Soon all the slopes glimmered with 
 scores of thousands of lights illuminating great 
 fields of white tents of our army and Sherman's 
 far outspread, like the city of a dream. So atmo- 
 sphered, guest-greetings lingered; new friendships 
 grew " old " ; farewells begun, — ^never to end. And 
 when all the deep influences of the hour were at 
 
322 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 their ftillness, we drew within the canvas cathedral 
 for our consummation. Here circled another 
 scene, — ^bright, clear, and strong, — :the presence 
 of cherished womanhood shed a glory upon the 
 stern faces and martial forms of men long lost to 
 dreams like these. The great assembly hushed 
 itself to silence in expectation. General Griffin 
 was seated in the focus of all this; it was my part 
 to present the material memorial. I had no ex- 
 perience in public speaking, and felt hardly com- 
 petent to express the feeling which then filled every 
 heart of the assembly. But words like these were 
 somehow given me: 
 
 "General Griffin: 
 
 " Our hearts stir as I speak the name, — so 
 familiar, so revered; so interwoven with experi- 
 ences deep as life and death. 
 
 " The officers of your old division have desired to 
 present you with a testimonial of their appreciation 
 and esteem. They have selected for this purpose 
 the badge of our division, — ^the Red Maltese 
 Cross, — as the most fitting remembrance of your 
 long association with them, — a memento of the 
 toils and trials and desperate deeds and the suffer- 
 ings you have not shunned to share with them, and 
 a token of honorable service they are proud to 
 share with you. 
 
 " This cross of ours is already famed in story. 
 Now it has a new history, — a new sanctity. Not 
 more worthily was this the chosen emblem of those 
 who thronged to redeem the Holy Sepulchre from 
 
The Encampment 323 
 
 Infidel hands, than of these men of yours who have 
 rallied to rescue a nation's life from assaults the 
 more bitter because dealt by those we had deemed 
 as brothers. On no breasts was this ever more 
 bravely borne in battle — on no banners more 
 proudly emblazoned — in no cathedral arches 
 more sacredly enshrined. 
 
 " But this is not the hour for words. The tongue 
 cannot follow where the feet have trod, nor reach 
 where the heart aspires. 
 
 "It remains for me, therefore, to present you 
 with this cross, in behalf of the officers of your 
 old division who wait to greet you. But not all. 
 Some who were with us, and would have been of 
 the brightest to grace this festival, greet us here no 
 more, — ^hearts warmest in friendship, truest to 
 trust, bravest in the day of battle. We know and 
 hallow the spots where they fell, first or last, in the 
 ranks of honor. But not one of them all, — I say 
 it before these witnesses, — not one of those is 
 lying in his lowly bed to-day through any fault or 
 failure or rashness of our commander. 
 
 " In memory, then, of those, and in behalf of 
 these, — ^in the name of all, — I give this cross into 
 the hand of a soldier without reproach. It is red, — 
 with blood more precious than its diamonds; red, 
 — after the symbolism of sacred art, — ^with love 
 more lasting than its stars. 
 
 " In this day of the country's victory and peace, 
 in this hoiu" of sacred associations, we meet, and 
 we part, under this cross, emblem of the world's 
 dearest memories and most blessed hopes. Receive 
 
324 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 it, therefore, with its legend and benediction: 
 In hoc signo vinces." 
 
 General Griffin received the badge, and holding 
 it in his hand, responded: 
 
 "General: 
 
 "Your words have overcome me with a sense 
 of what it is to be thus honored by men who have 
 added honor to this symbol. You remind me of 
 what has been the cost of this fame, and what 
 has been the value of this service. You yourself, 
 General, a youthful subordinate when I first took 
 command of this division, now through so many 
 deep experiences risen to be its tested, trusted, and 
 beloved commander, — ^you are an example of what 
 experiences of loyalty and fortitude, of change and 
 constancy, have marked the career of this honored 
 division. I say to you all, that you have written 
 a deathless page on the records of your country's 
 history, and that your character and your valor 
 have entered into her life for all the future, 
 
 "For myself, having seen and served with you 
 from the first, my affection for you is in the deepest 
 places of my heart, and as often as I shall look 
 upon this token in the coming years, I shall thank 
 God for the manhood that has made it glorious. " 
 
 As he spoke these last words, I advanced and 
 pinned the badge over his breast, and pressing his 
 hand upon it he turned and bowed before the 
 assembly. Then it was as if the slumbering chords 
 
The Encampment 325 
 
 of thousands of hearts had challenged the song of 
 the morning stars. First the low ripple of hand- 
 clapping after common custom, but more were 
 clasping each others' hands in emotion they knew 
 not how to express. Strong men rose to their feet 
 or bent their heads in sobs. But soon murmtirs 
 found voice, and this swelled to shouting iintil the 
 band struck up its rhapsody, "Hail to the Cliief," 
 when all left their seats and crowded around Gen- 
 eral Griffin, who for once was not able to give 
 command, — even to himself. Slowly we broke 
 into friendly groups, calming ourselves down in 
 circling cadences of farewells until at a signal we 
 drew together in the song of Auld Lang Syne, 
 after which the heart-searching bugle-call "Lights 
 Out" calling as from some far-away home dispersed 
 us under the stars. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LAST REVIEW 
 
 IT was now the morning of May 23d, 1865, the 
 day appointed for the final grand review of 
 the Army of the Potomac, to extend from the 
 Capitol to the White House along Pennsylvania 
 Avenue in the city of Washington. It is with deep 
 emotion that I attempt to tell the story of my last 
 vision of that army, — ^the vision of its march out 
 of momentous action into glorious dream. 
 
 This is not an essay in composition — ^military, 
 historic, or artistic. I seek to hold fast the image 
 which passed before my eyes. But this will no 
 less be truth, — one aspect of the truth, which in its 
 manifold, magnificent wholeness would take the 
 notes and memories of thousands to portray. It 
 will be manifest that I cannot undertake to reduce 
 all the featttres of the picture to a common scale, 
 nor to exhibit merit equitably. Some points, no 
 doubt, are set in high light, under the emotion 
 which atmospheres them; but it is not meant to 
 throw others into shadow. If, in so rapid and 
 condensed a passage, only familiar and prominent 
 
 commanders can be named, it is not that I forget 
 
 326 
 
The Last Review 327 
 
 that in every grade and all through the ranks are 
 men whose names deserve remembrance as im- 
 mortal as their devotion was sublime. Neither 
 can I' forget, while yielding to none in my appreci- 
 ation of the honor due to "the man behind the 
 musket," that the military efficiency of such is 
 largely affected by the instruction, discipline, and 
 influence of those in authority and responsibility 
 over them, and their success and fame largely 
 due to the manner in which they are "handled." 
 A command is likely to be what its commander is. 
 There are crises when confidence in his ability 
 turns the scale of battle. There are supreme 
 moments when the sudden sweep to the front by a 
 commanding character strikes the heart and exalts 
 the spirit of men so that they do superhuman things. 
 Such are the men who are to pass before us. 
 
 It is the Army of the Potomac. After years of 
 tragic history and dear-bought glories, gathering 
 again on the banks of the river from which it took 
 its departure and its name; an army yet the same 
 in name, in form, in spirit, but the deep changes in 
 its material elements telling its tuispeakable vicissi- 
 tudes; having kept the faith, having fought the 
 good fight, now standing up to receive its benedic- 
 tion and dismissal, and bid farewell to comradeship 
 so strangely dear. 
 
 We were encamped on Arlington Heights, op- 
 posite the capital. As yet there were but two corps 
 up — ^the Second and the Fifth. The Sixth had 
 been sent back from Appomattox to Danville, to 
 secure the fruits of the surrender, and stand to the 
 
328 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 front before the falling curtain of the Confederacy. 
 They had ftdfilled that duty, and on this very day 
 were setting forth for this final station. Of those 
 that had come up, all the detachments had been 
 called in. My division that left Appomattox 
 five thousand strong now mustered twice that 
 number. The ranks stood full— ^what there were 
 of the living — ^for one more march together, one 
 last look and long farewell. 
 
 Troops that had been with us and part of us in 
 days of need and days of glory, were brought with 
 us again: the Cavalry Corps, and the Ninth Corps, 
 with a division of the Nineteenth. The Ninth, by 
 the circumstance of its commander outranking all 
 other generals except Grant, although of late often 
 with us, was not incorporated with our army until 
 the twenty-fourth of May, 1864, when Bumside 
 magnanimously waived his rank and with his 
 corps became part and parcel of our army through 
 the terrible campaign of that dark year, and until 
 relieved at Burkeville a few days after the surrender 
 at Appomattox. To these old companions General 
 Meade with generous cotirtesy gave the post of 
 honor and precedence. Sherman's great army 
 had lately come up, and was encamped on the river 
 bank at no great distance below. 
 
 A mighty spectacle this: the men from far and 
 wide, who with heroic constancy, through toils and 
 sufferings and sacrifices that never can be told, 
 had broken down the Rebellion, gathered to give 
 their arms and colors and their history to the keep- 
 ing of a delivered, regenerated nation. 
 
The Last Review 329 
 
 For our review the order of march was to be the 
 following: headquarters of the Army of the Po- 
 tomac; the cavalry corps; the provost marshal's 
 brigade; the engineer brigade; the Ninth Corps 
 with a division of the Nineteenth; then the Army 
 of the Potomac, that stood here upon the earth — ■ 
 the Fifth Corps and the Second; the infantry and 
 artillery, and ambulances too — ^great sharers of 
 eventful service. 
 
 The Ninth Corps crossed the Potomac on the af- 
 ternoon of the twenty-second and went into bivouac 
 east of the Capitol. The engineer brigade, the pro- 
 vost guard, and the escort moved to bivouac near 
 Long Bridge, to start at 3.30 in the morning for their 
 rendezvous at the foot of the Capitol front, ready to 
 follow the cavalry ordered to be there at 9 a.m. At 
 4 A.M., of the twenty-third, the Fifth Corps began 
 its march over Long Bridge, Canal Bridge, and 
 Maryland Avenue to First Street, East, moving 
 "left in front," in order to draw out easily right in 
 front, for the ceremonial column. The Second 
 Corps, leaving camp at 7 a.m., followed the Fifth to 
 the vicinity of the Capitol, ready to follow in review. 
 
 The movement was to be up Pennsylvania 
 Avenue. The formation was in column by com- 
 panies closed in mass, with shortened intervals 
 between regiments, brigades, and divisions; the 
 company fronts equalized to twenty files each, so 
 the number of companies corresponded to the total 
 niunbers of the regiment, some having twelve or 
 fifteen companies, so many had gathered now for 
 the grand muster-out. 
 
330 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Six ambulances were to follow each brigade, 
 moving three abreast. The artillery brigades were 
 to accompany their respective corps. The in- 
 fantry were to take "route step " and right shoulder 
 arms until reaching the State Department building, 
 where they take the cadenced step and the shoulder 
 arms, later known as the "carry." Here also the 
 "guide left " was to be taken, as the reviewing stand 
 was in front of the President's house. He was 
 the proper reviewing officer; but arrangements were 
 made for the accommodation also of the Cabinet, 
 the Foreign Diplomatic Corps, the governors of 
 States, and other distinguished personages and 
 high officials. In the, salute, drums were to ruffle 
 and colors dip, but only moimted officers were to 
 salute. The bands were not to turn out in front of 
 the reviewing officer, as is the custom in reviews. 
 All precautions were taken to preserve relative 
 distances, so as to avoid crowding, confusion, and 
 delay in the marching coltunn. 
 
 In my command we were well aware of quite an 
 anxiety among officers and men of the army gen- 
 erally to look their very best, and more, too, on this 
 occasion; for new uniforms, sashes, epaulettes, 
 saddle housings, and other gay trappings almost 
 disgmsed some of our hardiest veterans, who were 
 not insensible to the new order of spectators before 
 whom they were now to pass their ordeal. I hesi- 
 tate to admit that in the revulsion from this on the 
 part of the officers and men of my division, there 
 might be a scornful pride more sinfiil than that of 
 vanity. We knew many a dude in dress who ex- 
 
The Last Review 331 
 
 pressed in this way a consciousness of personal 
 worth which rang true in the tests of battle. We 
 could not pretend to be better, — ^proud of our 
 humility. Perhaps we thought we could not look 
 equal to what we deemed our worth and possibly 
 our reputation; so we resolved to do nothing for 
 show, but to look just what we were, and be 
 judged by what we wore, letting our plainness tell 
 its own story. The men brought themselves up to 
 regulation field inspection; themselves, their dress 
 and accouterments clean and bright, but all of 
 every-day identity. And for officers no useless 
 trappings, rider or horse; plain, open saddle, with 
 folded gray army blanket underneath; light, open 
 bridle with simple ctu-b and snaffle-rein; service 
 uniform — shoulder-strap, belts, scabbards, boots, 
 and spurs of the plainest, — no sashes, no epaulettes ; 
 light marching order, just as in the field, but 
 clean and trim. No doubt this might make us 
 somewhat conspicuous, as things were; but home- 
 liness was a character we thought we could main- 
 tain, even "before company." 
 
 It was a clear, bright morning, such as had so 
 often ushered in quite other scenes than this. At 
 nine o'clock the head of column moved. First 
 Meade — commanding aU — our old Fifth Corps 
 commander, knightly in bearing as ever, grave of 
 countenance now, thoughtful perhaps with fore- 
 shadowings. With him rode his principal staff: 
 chivalrous "Andy Webb," in earlier days familiar 
 friend, inspector of our corps, — since that, meet- 
 ing with his superb brigade the death-defying 
 
332 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 valor of Pickett's charge, — now rightly chief-of- 
 staff of the army; grim old Hunt, chief of artillery, 
 whose words were like his shot, whose thunder- 
 sweeps had shaken hearts and hills from Antietam 
 to Appomattox; Seth Williams, adjutant-general, 
 steadfast as the rocky crests of Maine from which 
 he came, whose level head had balanced the dis- 
 turbances and straightened the confusions of 
 campaigns and changes of commanders through 
 our whole history. And following these heads of 
 staff, all the gallant retinue well known to us 
 all. 
 
 Now move the cavalry: survivors and full- 
 blown flower of the troopers Joe Hooker, in the 
 travailing winter of 1862 and 1863, had redeemed 
 from servitude as scattered orderlies and provost 
 guards at headquarters and loose-governed cities, 
 and transformed into a species of soldier not known 
 since the flood-times of Persia, the Huns of AttUa, 
 or hordes of Tamerlane; cavalry whose manoeuvres 
 have no place in the tactics of modern Europe; 
 rough-rider, raiders, scouts-in-force, cutting com- 
 munications, sweeping around armies and leagues 
 of entrenched lines in an enemy's country, — 
 Stoneman and Pleasanton and Wilson, Kilpatrick, 
 Custer, and alas! Dahlgren. 
 
 And when the solid front of pitched battle op- 
 poses, then terrible in edge and onset, as in the 
 straight-drawn squadron charges at Brandy Sta- 
 tion, the clattering sweep at Aldie, the heroic lone- 
 hand in the lead at Gettysburg, holding back the 
 battle till our splendid First Corps could surge 
 
The Last Review 333 
 
 forward to meet its crested wave, and John Buford 
 and John Reynolds could shake hands! Through 
 the dark campaign of 1864, everywhere giving 
 account of themselves as there. At last in 1865, 
 sweeping over the breastworks at Five Forks 
 down upon the smoking cannon and serried bayo- 
 nets; thence swirling around Sailor's Creek and 
 High Bridge, and finally at Appomattox by incredi- 
 ble marches circumventing Lee's flying column, 
 and holding at bay Stonewall Jackson's old corps, 
 with Hill's and Anderson's, under Gordon; — alone, 
 this cavalry, until our infantry overtaking the 
 horses, force the flag of truce to the front, and all is 
 over! Fighters, firm, swift, superb, — cavalry — 
 chivalry! 
 
 Sheridan is not here. He is down on the Rio 
 Grande, — a surveyor, a draughtsman, getting 
 ready to illustrate Seward's diplomatic message to 
 Napoleon that a French army cannot force an 
 Austrian Emperor on the Mexican Republic. 
 Crook, so familiar to our army, is not here, pre- 
 ferring an "engagement" elsewhere and otherwise; 
 for love, too, bears honors to-day. Soldierly 
 Merritt is at the head, well deserving of his place. 
 Leading the divisions are Custer, Davies, and 
 Devin, names known before and since in the lists 
 of heroes. Following also, others whom we know: 
 Gibbs, Wells, Pennington, Stagg of Michigan, 
 Fitzhugh of New York, Brayton Ives of Con- 
 necticut. Dashing Kilpatrick is far away. Grand 
 Gregg we do not see; nor level-headed Smith, nor 
 indomitable "Prin. " Cilley, with his ist Maine 
 
334 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Cavalry; these now sent to complete the peace 
 around Petersburg. 
 
 Now rides the provost marshal general, gallant 
 George Macy of the 20th Massachusetts, his right 
 arm symbolized by an empty sleeve pinned across 
 his breast. 
 
 Here the 2d Pennsylvania Cavalry, and stout 
 remnants of the ist Massachusetts, reminding us 
 of the days of Sargent and "Sam" Chamberlain. 
 Here, too, the 3d and loth U. S. Infantry, experi- 
 enced in stern duties. 
 
 Now, with heads erect and steady eyes, marches 
 the Signal Corps; of those that beckoned us to the 
 salvation of Round Top, and disclosed movements 
 and preparations otherwise concealed in the dense 
 maze and whirl of battle from the Wilderness to 
 the Chickahominy; then from their lofty observa- 
 tories watching the long ferment on the Appo- 
 mattox shores. What message do your signals 
 waft us now? 
 
 Here come the engineers with their great un- 
 wieldy pontoons grotesque to the eye, grand to the 
 thought ! Had we not smiled at them — ^the huge 
 dromedary caravans, struggling along the road, or 
 sliding, leviatha,n-like, down the slopes of half- 
 sheltered river-coves, .latmching out to their peril- 
 ous, importunate calling? Did not the waters of 
 all Virginia's rivers know of their bulk and burden? 
 Had we not seen them — not smiling — time and time 
 again, spanning the dark Rappahannock? — as in 
 December, 1862, Sumner and Howard launched 
 them, from the exposed bank opposite Fredericks- 
 
The Last Review 335 
 
 burg into the face of Lee's army — ^vainly opposing, 
 — ^bridging the river of death, into the jaws of hell! 
 Had we not a little later, a mile below, crowded 
 over the hurriedly laid, still swaying, boat-bridge, 
 raked and swept by the batteries on Marye's 
 Heights, and rushed up the bloody, slippery slopes 
 to the dead-line stone wall? And on the second 
 midnight after, shall we forget that forlorn recross- 
 ing, in murk and rain, on the last pontoon bridge 
 left, and this mtofHed with earth to dtdl our stealthy, 
 silent tread, and already half-loosened, and ready 
 to cut free and swing from the touch of that fateful 
 shore? And what of that rear-guard covering the 
 retreat from Chancellorsville in 1863, seeking the 
 bridge-end in utter blackness of darkness and 
 driving storm of rain and rushing river, not finding 
 it because the swelling torrent was roaring twenty 
 feet between it and the shore; and when gained by 
 manly resolution or demoniac instinct, already half 
 a ruin, the lashings of chess and rail loosened by 
 rush and pressure of previous passers; crowded 
 plank in heaps and gaps yard wide, amid the yawn- 
 ing, dizzying surges in the pitchy blackness, where 
 only the sagacious horse cotdd smell the distances 
 and leap the chasms, followed by the trusting 
 "brotherhood" of man! "Great arks" indeed 
 they were, these boats, borne above the waters of 
 desolation, and bearing over manhood fit to re- 
 plenish and repeople the war- whelmed earth! 
 
 Last, looming above the broad waters of the 
 James, your thread-like bridge swajdng beneath 
 the mighty tread, our horses hardly able to keep 
 
336 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 their feet, bearing us over to the gloomy tests of 
 Petersburg, the long beginning of the end. 
 
 And where are the brave young feet that-pressed 
 your well-laid plank at Germanna and Ely's Ford 
 of the Rapidan on that bright morning a summer 
 ago? To what shores led that bridge? 
 
 No, we do not smile to-day at the ungainly pon- 
 toons! God rest their bodies now! if perchance 
 they have no sotils except what have gone into the 
 men who bore them, and whom in turn they bore. 
 
 Now rises to its place the tried and tested old 
 Ninth Corps, once of Bumside and Reno, now led 
 by Parke, peer of the best, with Willcox and Grifiin 
 of New Hampshire and Curtin leading its divisions, 
 — Potter still absent with cruel wounds, and 
 Hartranft detached on high service elsewhere, — 
 and its brigade commanders. General McLaughlen 
 and Colonels Harriman, Ely, Carruth, Titus, 
 McCalmon, and Matthews. These are the men of 
 the North Carolina expedition, of Roanoke and 
 New Berne, who came up in time of sore need to 
 help our army at Manassas and Chantilly, and 
 again at South Mountain and Antietam. After 
 great service in the west, with us again in the 
 terrible campaign of 1864; then in the restless, long- 
 drawn, see-saw action on the Petersburg lines; 
 through the direful "crater"; at last in the gallant 
 onset on the enemy's flank and the pressing South- 
 side pursuit ; — ^part of us until all was over. 
 
 So they are ours, these men of the Ninth Corps, 
 and our proud hearts yearn forward to them as they 
 are whelmed in tumultuous greeting along the 
 
The Last Review 337 
 
 thronging avenue. Noble men! As they move 
 out past the head of our waiting column, I look at 
 them with far-running thought. Earnestly re- 
 membered by the older regiments of my division; 
 for, sent to support the Ninth Corps at the Bumside 
 Bridge when it was so gallantly carried at the 
 bayonet point by Potter's 51st New York and 
 Hartranft's 51st Pennsylvania, Bumside pushed 
 across the Antietam our single division to replace 
 that whole corps on those all-important heights 
 where he was expecting a heavy attack. How ivll 
 the intervening years have been! How strained 
 and sifted the ranks! Of those two remembered 
 regiments to-day, there stand: the 51st New York, 
 one hundred and twenty men; the 51st Pennsyl- 
 vania, forty men! 
 
 Here, too, a remnant, the 36th Massachusetts, 
 long ago shipmates with us of the 20th Maine on 
 the transport that bore us forth in 1862 to fields and 
 fortunes far apart, now at last united again. We 
 remember how that splendor of equipment and 
 loftiness of bearing made us feel very green and 
 htmible, but we are somehow equalized now! 
 Of them was Major Henry Burrage, now proudly 
 riding, acting asistant adjutant-general of his 
 brigade, — ^foretokening his place and part in the 
 Loyal Legion of Maine! 
 
 Here comes our 31st Maine, brave Daniel 
 White's; consolidated with it now the 32d, those 
 left from its short, sharp experience with Went- 
 worth and John Marshall Brown, at such dear cost 
 leading, — ^both Bowdoin boys, one the first adju- 
 
338 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 tant of the 20th. Here passes steadily to the front 
 as of yore the 7th Maine Battery, Twitchell, my 
 late coUege friend, at the head: splendid reces- 
 sional, for I saw it last in 1864 grimly bastioning 
 the slopes above Rives' Salient, where darkness 
 fell upon my eyes, and- 1 thought to see no more. 
 
 Following, in Dwight's Division of the Nine- 
 teenth Corps, other brave men, known and dear: 
 a battalion of the ist Maine Veterans, under 
 Captain George Brown; the brigades of stalwart 
 George Beal and clear-eyed "Jim" Fessenden, my 
 college classmate; the sturdy 15th Maine from its 
 eventful experiences of the Gulf under steadfast- 
 hearted Isaac Dyer, Murray, and Frank Drew; 
 soldierly Nye with the 29th, made veterans on the 
 Red River and Shenandoah; royal Tom Hubbard, 
 with his 30th, once Frank Fessenden's, whom 
 Surgeon Seth Gordon saved; a third of them now 
 of the old 13th, — ^these, too, of the Red River, 
 Sabine Cross-Roads, and Grand Ecore, and thence 
 to the Virginia valleys; rich in experiences, roman- 
 tic and Roman! 
 
 And now it is the Fifth Corps. The signal 
 sounds. Who is that mounting there? Do you 
 see him? It is Charles Griffin. How lightly he 
 springs to the saddle. How easy he sits, straight 
 and slender, chin advanced, eyes to the front, 
 pictured against the sky! Well we know him. 
 Clear of vision, sharp of speech, true of heart, clean 
 to the center. Around him group the staff, pvire- 
 souled Fred Locke at their head. 
 
 My bugle calls. Our horses know it. The staff 
 
The Last Review 339 
 
 gather, — Colonel Spear, Major Fowler, Tom 
 Chamberlain, my brave young brother, of the first. 
 The flag of the First Division, the red cross on its 
 battle-stained white, sways aloft; the hand of its 
 young bearer trembling with his trust, more than 
 on storm-swept fields. Now they move — all — 
 ten thousand hearts knitted together. Up the 
 avenue, into that vast arena, bright with color — 
 flowers, garlands, ribbons, flags, and flecked with 
 deeper tones. Windows, balconies, house-tops, 
 high and far, thronged with rich-robed forms, 
 flushed faces, earnest eyes. Now it seems a 
 tumult of waters; we pass like the children of 
 Israel walled by the friendly Red Sea. Around us 
 and above, murmurs, lightnings, and thunders of 
 greeting. The roar of welcome moves forward 
 with ovir column. Those in the streetways press 
 upon us; it almost needs the provost guard to 
 clear our way. 
 
 Now a girlish form, robed white as her spirit, 
 presses close; modest, yet resolute, eyes fixed on 
 her purpose. She reaches up towards me a wreath 
 of rare flowers, close-braided, fit for viking's arm- 
 ring, or victor's crown. How could I take it? 
 Sword at the "carry" and left hand tasked, trying 
 to curb my excited horse, stirred by the vastness, 
 the tumult, the splendor of the scene. He had 
 been thrice shot down tmder me; he had seen the 
 great stirrender. But this unaccustomed vision — 
 he had never seen a woman coming so near before 
 — ^moved him strangely. Was this the soft death- 
 angel — did he think? — calling us again, as in other 
 
340 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 days? For as often as she lifted the garland to the 
 level of my hand, he sprang clear from earth — 
 heavenwards, doubtless, — ^but was not heaven 
 nearer just then? I managed to bring down his 
 fore-feet close beside her, and dropped my sword- 
 point almost to her feet, with a bow so low I could 
 have touched her cheek. Was it the garland's 
 breath or hers that floated to my lips? My .horse 
 trembled. I might have solved the mystery, 
 could I have trusted him. But he would not trust 
 me. All that was granted me was the Christian 
 virtue of preferring another's good and passing 
 the dangerous office of receiving this Mizpah token 
 to the gallant young aide behind me. And I must 
 add I did not see him again for some time! All 
 this passed like a flash in act; but it was not qtiite 
 so brief in effect. From that time my horse was 
 shy of girls — sharp eyes out for soft eyes — I dare 
 say for his master's peace and safety! 
 
 All the way up the Avenue a tumult of sound 
 and motion. Around Griffin is a whirlpool, and 
 far behind swells and rolls the generous acclaim. 
 At the rise of ground near the Treasury a backward 
 glance takes in the mighty spectacle: the broad 
 Avenue for more than a mile solid full, and more, 
 from wall to waU, from door to roof, with straining 
 forms and outwelling hearts. In the midst, on- 
 pressing that darker stream, with arms and colors 
 resplendent in the noon-day sun, an army of 
 tested manhood, clothed with power, crowned with 
 glory, marching to its dissolution! 
 
 At this turn of the Avenue, our bugle rings out the 
 
The Last Review 341 
 
 signal: "Prepare for Review!" The bands strike 
 the cadenced march; the troops take up the step; 
 the Hnes straighten; the column rectifies dis- 
 tances; the company fronts take perfect "dress," 
 guide left, towards the side of the reviewing stand 
 ahead, arms at the ceremonial "carry," 
 
 AU is steadiness, dignity, order now. We are 
 to pass in final review. The culminating point is 
 near; the end for us nearing; a far-borne vision 
 broods upon our eyes; world-wide and years-long 
 thought, — deep, silent, higher than joy! 
 
 Still there is some marching more, in this re- 
 strained, cadenced order. We approach the region 
 of the public offices and higher residential quarter, 
 welcomed by yet fairer forms and more finely 
 balanced salutations. Ah! women sitting at the 
 balconied windows, with straining eyes and hand- 
 kerchiefs now waving, then suddenly, at some face 
 seen, or not seen where once belonging, pressed 
 to faces bowed and quivering. Some of you I 
 have seen where the earth itself was trembling, 
 beneath the greetings wherewith man meets man 
 with wrath and wreck — ^you and those like you, 
 for heaven, too, is wide, — searching under the 
 battle smoke to find a lost face left to be unknown, 
 bending to bind up a broken frame made in God's 
 image, or skillfully, as divinely taught, fashioning 
 the knot to check an artery's out-rushing life, 
 nay, even pressing tender fingers over it tiU what 
 you deemed better help could come; to catch a 
 dying message, or breathe a passing prayer, or 
 perchance no more than give a cup of water to men 
 
342 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 now of God's "little ones," — ^so done unto his 
 Christ! 
 
 You in my soul I see, faithful watcher by my 
 cotside long days and nights together through the 
 delirium of mortal anguish, — steadfast, calm, and 
 sweet as eternal love. We pass now qtiickly from 
 each other's sight; but I know full well that where 
 beyond these passing scenes you shall be, there wiU 
 be heaven! 
 
 But now we come opposite the reviewing stand. 
 Here are the President, his Cabinet, ambassadors 
 and ministers of foreign lands, generals, governors, 
 judges, high officers of the nation and the states. 
 But we miss the deep, sad eyes of Lincoln coming 
 to review us after each sore trial. Something is 
 lacking to our hearts now, — even in this supreme 
 hour. Already the simple, plain, almost thread- 
 bare forms of the men of my division have come 
 into view, and the President and his whole great 
 company on the stand have risen and passed to 
 the very front edge with gracious and generous 
 recognition. I wheel my horse, lightly touching 
 rein and spur to bring his proud head and battle- 
 scarred neck to share the deep salutation of the 
 sword. Then, riding past, I dismount at the 
 President's invitation, and ascend the stand. 
 Exchanging quick greetings, I join those at the 
 front. All around I hear the murmured exclama- 
 tions: "This is Porter's old Division!" "This is 
 the Fifth Corps!" "These are straight from Five 
 Forks and Appomattox!" It seemed as if all 
 remained standing while the whole corps passed. 
 
The Last Review 343 
 
 Surely all of them arose as each brigade commander 
 passed, and as some deep-dyed, riven color drooped 
 in salutation; and the throng on the stand did not 
 diminish, although for more than three hours the 
 steady march had held them before ours came to 
 view. 
 
 For me, while this division was passing, no other 
 thing could lure my eyes away, whether looking on 
 or through. These were my men, and those who 
 followed were familiar and dear. They belonged 
 to me, and I to them, by bonds birth cannot create 
 nor death sever. More were passing here than the 
 personages on the stand could see. But to me so 
 seeing, what a review, how great, how far, how 
 near! It was as the morning of the restirrection! 
 
 The brigades to-day are commanded by General 
 Pearson, General Gregory, and Colonel Edmunds, 
 veterans of the corps. First is the Third Brigade, 
 bearing the spirit and transformed substance of 
 Porter' old division of Yorktown, and Morell's at 
 Gaines' Mill and Malvern Hill. These are of the 
 men I stood with at Antietam and Fredericksburg, 
 and Chancellorsville and Gettysbiu-g. Of that 
 regiment — ^the 20th Maine — a third were left on 
 the slopes of Round Top, and a third again in the 
 Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, the North Anna, 
 Cold Harbor, and the Chickahominy; to-day min- 
 gling in its ranks the remnants of the noble 2d 
 and 1st Sharpshooters. Beside it still, the 11 8th 
 Pennsylvania, sharing all its experiences from the 
 day when these two young regiments took ordeal 
 together in the floods, of waters beneath and of 
 
344 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 fiery death above in the testing passage of Shepards- 
 town Ford in 1862. More Pennsylvania veterans 
 yet, the storied 83d and 91st, and brilliant 155th 
 Zouave, and the shadow of the stalwart 62d, gone, 
 and 2 1st Cavalry passed on. With these the ist 
 and 1 6th Michigan, ever at the front, the keen- 
 eyed 1st and 2d Sharpshooters and proud relics of 
 the 4th, left from the wheat-field of Gettysburg. 
 Here is the trusted, sorely-tried 32d Massachusetts, 
 with unfaltering spirit and ranks made good from 
 the best substance of the i8th, wakening heart-held 
 visions. These names and numbers tell of the men 
 who had opened all the fiery gateways of Virginia 
 from the York River to the Chickahominy, and 
 from the Rapidan to the Appomattox. 
 
 Now Gregory's New York Brigade — ^the 187th, 
 1 88th, and 189th, — ^young in order of number, but 
 veteran in experience and honor; worthy of the 
 list held yet in living memory, the 12th, 13th, 14th, 
 17th, 25th, and 44th, — one by one gone before. 
 
 One more brigade yet, of this division; of the 
 tested last that shall be first: the splendid 185th 
 New York, and fearless, clear-brained Sniper still 
 at their head; the stalwart fourteen-company 
 regiment, the 198th Pennsylvania, its gallant field 
 officers gone: brave veteran Sickel fallen with 
 shattered arm, and brilliant young Adjutant 
 Maceuen shot dead, both within touch of my 
 hand in the sharp rally on the Quaker Road; and 
 Major Glen, since commanding, cut down on the 
 height of valor, colors in hand, leading a charge I 
 ordered in a moment of supreme need. Captain 
 
The Last Review 345 
 
 John Stanton, lately made major, leads to-day. 
 These also coming into the bloody field of the dark 
 year 1864, but soon ranked with veterans and 
 wreathed with honor: In the last campaign 
 opening with the brilliant victory on the enemy's 
 right flank; of the foremost in the cyclone sweep 
 at Five Forks; and at Appomattox first of the 
 infantry to receive the flag of truce which bespoke 
 the end. Each of these brigades had been severally 
 in my command; and now they were mine all 
 together, as I was theirs. So has passed this First 
 Division, — and with it, part of my soul. 
 
 But now comes in sight a form before which the 
 tumult of applause swells in mightier volume. It 
 is Ayres, born soldier, self-commanding, nerve of 
 iron, heart of gold, — a man to btuld on. What 
 vicissitudes has he not seen since Gettysburg! Of 
 those three splendid brigades which followed the 
 white Maltese cross to the heights of Round Top, 
 compact in spirit and discipline and power, only 
 two regiments now hold their place, the 140th and 
 146th New York, — and of these both colonels killed 
 at the head of their heroes: O'Rorke at Gettysburg 
 and Jenkins in the Wilderness. Where are the 
 regulars, who since 1862 had been ever at our side, 
 — ^the ten iron-hearted regiments that made that 
 terrible charge down the north spur of Little Round 
 Top into the seething furies at its base, and brought 
 back not one-half of its deathless offering? Like 
 Ayres it was — ^in spirit and in truth, — ^when asked 
 at the Warren Court, years after, then reviewing 
 the Five Forks battle, "Where were your regulars 
 
346 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 then?" to answer with bold lip quivering, "Buried, 
 sir, at Gettysburg ! " Whereat there was silence, — 
 and something more. And of what were not then 
 btiried, fifteen hundred more were laid low beneath 
 the flaming scythes of the Wilderness, Spottsyl- 
 vania, and the other bloody fields of that campaign. 
 And the Government, out of pride and pity, sent 
 the shredded fragments of them to the peaceful 
 forts in the islands of New York harbor, — ^left 
 there to their thoughts of glory.' 
 
 Their places had been taken by two brigades 
 from the old First Corps, dearly experienced 
 there: the thrice-honored Maryland Brigade, ist, 
 4th, 7th, and 8th, in whose latest action I saw two 
 of its brigade commanders shot down in quick 
 succession; and the gallant little Delaware Brigade, 
 with its proud record of loyalty and fidelity, part of 
 the country's best history. Brave Dennison and 
 Gwyn, generals leading these two brigades to-day; 
 both bearing their honors modestly, as their 
 hardly healed wounds manftdly 
 
 Now the First Brigade: this of New York, — 
 the superb 5th, 140th, and 146th, and the 15th 
 Artillery, their equal in honor. At the head of 
 this, on the fire-swept angle at Five Forks the high- 
 hearted Fred Winthrop fell; then Grimshaw and 
 Ayres himself led on to the first honors of that great 
 day. At its head to-day rides the accomplished 
 
 ' The losses of the regulars must in honor be here recalled: 
 
 At Gettysburg, 829; The Wilderness, 295; Spottsylvania, 420; North 
 
 Anna, 44; Bethesda Church, 165; The Weldon Road, 480; Peebles' 
 
 Farm, 76; a total of 2309. 
 
The Last Review 347 
 
 General Joe Hayes, scarcely recovered from dan- 
 gerous wounds. It was a hard place for brigade 
 commanders — ^the Fifth Corps, in those "all sum- 
 mer" battles — ^and for colonels too. 
 
 So they pass, those that had come to take the 
 place of the regulars; they pass into immortal 
 history. Oh! good people smiling, applauding, 
 tossing flowers, waving handkerchiefs from your 
 lips with vicarious suggestion, — ^what forms do you 
 see imder that white cross, now also going its long 
 way? 
 
 But here comes the Third Division, with Craw- 
 ford, of Fort Sumter fame; high gentleman, pimc- 
 tilious soldier, familiar to us all. Leading his 
 brigades are the fine commanders, dauntless Mor- 
 row, of the "Iron Brigade," erect above the scars 
 of Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Petersbxirg; 
 resolute Baxter, and bold Dick Coulter, — ^veterans, 
 marked, too, with wovmds. Theirs is the blue 
 cross, — speaking not of the azure heaven, but of 
 the down-pressing battle smoke. And the men 
 who in former days gave fame to that division, — 
 the Pennsylvania Reserves of the Peninsula, An- 
 tietam, and Gettysburg, with their strong "esprit 
 de corps" and splendor of service, — only the shadow 
 of them now. But it is of sunset gold. 
 
 Here draws near a moving spectacle indeed, the 
 last of the dear old First Corps; thrice decimated 
 at Gettysburg in action and passion heroic, martyr- 
 like, sublime ; then merged into the Fifth, proudly 
 permitted to bear its old colors, and in the crimson 
 campaign of 1864 fought down to a division; in the 
 
348 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 last days the ancient spirit shining in the ranks 
 where its scattered regiments are absorbed in other 
 brigades, — ^shining still to-day! But where are my 
 splendid six regiments of them which made that 
 resolute, forlorn-hope charge from the crest they 
 had carried fitly named "Fort HeU, " down past 
 the spewing dragons of "Fort Damnation" into 
 the miry, fiery pit before Rives' Salient of the dark 
 June i8th? Two regiments of them, the I2ist 
 Pennsylvania, Colonel Warner, and 1^26. Pennsyl- 
 vania, Colonel Warren, alone I see in this passing 
 pageant, — ^wom, thin, hostages of the mortal. I 
 violate the cottrtesies of the august occasion. I 
 give them salutation before the face of the review- 
 ing officer — ^the President himself, — ^asking no 
 permission, no forgiveness. 
 
 Here, led by valiant Small, that i6th Maine, 
 which under heroic Tilden held its appointed 
 station on the fierce first day of Gettysburg, obed- 
 ient to the laws, like Spartans, for their loyalty 
 and honor's sake; cut through, cut down, swept 
 over, scattered, captured; so that at dreary night- 
 fall the hushed voices of only four officers and 
 thirty-eight men answered the roll-call. With 
 thern the 94th New York, which under Colonel 
 Adrian Root shared its fate and glory. 
 
 And here are passing now those yet spared from 
 earth and heaven of that "Iron Brigade," of 
 Meredith's, on whose list appear such names as 
 Lucius Fairchild, Henry Morrow, Rufus Dawes, 
 and Samuel Williams, and such regiments as the 
 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan, and 2d, 6th, and 7th 
 
The Last Review 349 
 
 Wisconsin, which on the first day's front Une with 
 Buford and Reynolds, in that one fierce onset at 
 Willoughby's Run, withstood overwhelming odds, 
 with the loss of a thousand, a hundred and fifty- 
 three of highest manliness; that of the 24th Michi- 
 gan largest of all, — ^three hundred and sixty-five, 
 — eighty-one out of every hundred of that morning 
 roll-caU answering at evening, otherwhere. One 
 passing form to-day holds every eye. Riding 
 calmly at the head of the 7th Wisconsin is HoUon 
 Richardson, who at Five Forks sprang to take on 
 himself the death-blow struck at Warren as he 
 leaped the flaming breastworks in the lurid sunset 
 of his high career. 
 
 Pass on, men, in garb and movement to some 
 monotonous; pass on, men, modest and satisfied; 
 those looking on know what you are! 
 
 And now, Wainwright, with the artillery of the 
 corps, guns whose voices I should know among a 
 hxmdred: "D" of the Fifth Regular, ten-pounder 
 guns, which Hazlett lifted to the craggy crest of 
 Little Round Top, its old commander. Weed, 
 supporting; whence having thundered again his 
 law to a delivered people, God called them both to 
 their reward. "L" of the ist Ohio, perched on 
 the western slope, hurling defiance at deniers. I 
 see not Martin of the 3d Massachusetts, whose 
 iron plowed the gorge between Round Top and the 
 Devil's Den. But " B " of the 4th Regular is here, 
 which stood by me on the heart-bastioned hillock 
 in the whirlwind of the Quaker Road. And here 
 the 5th Massachusetts, which wrought miracles of 
 
350 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 valor all the way from the Fifth Corps right, across 
 the valley of death at Gettysburg, to the North 
 Anna; where, planted in my very skirmish line, 
 Phillips, erect on the gun-carriage, launched per- 
 cussion into buildings full of sharpshooters picking 
 off my best men. And where is Bigelow of the 9th 
 Massachusetts, who on the exposed front fell back 
 only with the recoil of his guns before the hordes 
 swarming through the Peach Orchard, giving back 
 shot, shrapnel, canister, rammer, pistol, and saber, 
 until his battery — ^guns, limbers, horses, men — 
 and he himself were a heap of mingled ruin? 
 Which, also, a year after, with Mink's ist New 
 York and Hart's 15th, came to support the charge 
 at the ominous Port Hell; whence Bigelow, with 
 watchful eyes, sent his brave men down through 
 hissing canister, and enfilading shell, and blinding 
 turf and pebbles flying from the up-torn earth, 
 to bring back my useless body from what else 
 were its final front. 
 
 Roar on, ye throngs around and far away; there 
 are voices in my ear out-thundering yours! 
 
 AU along in the passing column I have exchanged 
 glances with earnest, true-hearted surgeons, re- 
 membered too well, but never too much loved and 
 honored; with faithftd chaplains, hospital attend- 
 ants, and ambulance men, never to be forgotten, of 
 the few who know something of the unrecorded 
 scenes in the rear of a great battle. I have caught 
 glances also from bright-eyed young staff officers 
 who in the kaleidoscope changes of eventful years 
 had been of my field family. Their look was some- 
 
The Last Review 35 1 
 
 times confidential, as if slyly reminding me of the 
 salutary discipline of camp, when they were turned 
 out at reveille roll-call to "get acquainted with the 
 men"; and after guard-mounting, the college men 
 of them called up to demonstrate Euclid's "pons 
 asinorum" with their scabbards in the sand; and 
 for those who were not men of Bowdoin or Amherst 
 or Yale or Columbia, the test commuted to shiver- 
 ing with pistol shot the musty hard-tack tossed in 
 air, or at race-course gallop, spitting with saber- 
 point the "Turk's head " of a junk of "condemned " 
 pork on the commissary's hitching-post, or picking 
 up a handkerchief from the ground, riding headlong 
 at Tartar speed. Other pranks, of spontaneous 
 and surreptitious discipline, when they thought it 
 necessary to teach a green quartermaster how to 
 ride, by deftly tucking dry pine cones under his 
 saddle-cloth. You are ready to do it again, I see, 
 you demure pretenders, or something the se- 
 quence of this skill, more useful to yotir fellow-man! 
 Have they all passed, — ^the Fifth Corps? Or will 
 it ever pass? Am I left alone, or still with you all? 
 You, of the thirteen young colonels, colleagues 
 with me in the courts-martial and army schools of 
 the winter camps of 1862: Vincent, of the 83d 
 Pennsylvania, caught up in the fiery chariot from 
 the heights of Round Top; O'Rorke, of the 140th 
 New York, pressing to that glorious defense, swiftly 
 called from the head of his regiment to serener 
 heights; Jeffords, of the 4th Michigan, thrust 
 through by bayonets as he snatched back his lost 
 colors from the deadly reapers of the wheat-field; 
 
352 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Rice, of the 44th New York, crimsoning the har- 
 rowed crests at Spottsylvania with his hfe-blood, — 
 his intense soul snatched far otherwhere than his 
 last earthly thought — "Turn my face towards the 
 enemy'!"; Welch, of the i6th Michigan, first on 
 the ramparts at Peebles' Farm, shouting "On, 
 boys, and over!" and receiving from on high the 
 same order for his own daring spirit; Prescott, of 
 the 32d Massachusetts, who lay touching feet with 
 me after mortal Petersburg of June i8th, under the 
 midnight requiem of the somber pines, — I doomed 
 of all to go, and bidding him stay, — ^but the weird 
 winds were calling otherwise; Winthrop, of the 
 12th Regulars, before Five Forks just risen from a 
 guest-seat at my homely luncheon on a log, within 
 a half hour shot dead in the fore-front of the 
 whirling charge. These gone, — and of the rest: 
 Vamey, of the 2d Maine, worn down by prison 
 cruelties, and returning, severely wounded in the 
 head on the storm-swept slopes of Fredericksburg, 
 and forced to resign the service; Hayes, of the i8th 
 Massachusetts, cut down in the tangles of the Wil- 
 derness; Gwyn, of the 11 8th Pennsylvania, also 
 sorely wounded there; Herring, of the same regi- 
 ment, with a leg off at Dabney's Mill; Webb, then 
 of the corps staff, since, highly promoted, shot in 
 his uplifted head, fronting his brigade to the leaden 
 storm of Spottsylvania; Locke, adjutant-general of 
 the corps, — a bullet cutting from his very mouth 
 the order he was giving on the flaming crests of 
 Laurel Hill! 
 You thirteen — seven, before the year was out — 
 
The Last Review 353 
 
 shot dead at the head of your commands; of the 
 rest, every one desperately wounded in the thick 
 of battle; I last of all, but here to-day, — ^with you, 
 earthly or ethereal forms. 
 
 "Waes Hael!" — across the rifts of vision — "Be 
 Whole again, My Thirteen!" 
 
 What draws near heralded by tumult of applause, 
 but when well-recognized greeted with mingled 
 murmurs of reverence? It is the old Second Corps 
 — of Sumner and of Hancock, — ^led now by one no 
 less honored and admired, — Humphreys, the ac- 
 complished, heroic soldier, the noble and modest 
 man. He rides a snow-white horse, followed by his 
 well-proved staff, like-mounted, chief of them the 
 brilliant Frank Walker, capable of higher things, 
 and "Joe Smith," chief commissary, with a medal 
 of honor for gallant service beyond duty, — a 
 striking group, not less to the eye in color and 
 composition, than to the mind in character. 
 Above them is borne the corps badge, the clover- 
 leaf, — ^peaceful token, but a triple mace to foes, — 
 dear to thousands among the insignia of our army, 
 as the shamrock to Ireland or rose and thistle of the 
 British Empire. 
 
 Here comes the First Division, that of Richard- 
 son and Caldwell and Barlow and Miles; but at 
 its head to-day we see not Miles, for he is just 
 before ordered to Fortress Monroe to guard "Jeff 
 Davis" and his friends, — President "Andy John- 
 son" declaring he "wanted there a man who would 
 not let his prisoners escape. " So Ramsay of New 
 
 23 
 
354 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Jersey is in command on this proud day. Its 
 brigades are led by McDougal, Fraser, Nugent, and 
 MulhoUand — ^whereby you see the shamrock and 
 thistle are not wanting even in otir field. These 
 are the men we saw at the sunken road at Antietam, 
 the stone wall at Fredericksburg, the wheat-field 
 at Gettysburg, the bloody angle at Spottsylvania, 
 the swirling fight at Farmville, and in the pressing 
 pursuit along the Appomattox before which Lee was 
 forced to face to the rear and answer Grant's first 
 summons to surrender. We know them well. So 
 it seems do these thousands around. 
 
 These pass, or rather do not pass, but abide 
 with us; while crowd upon our full hearts the stal- 
 wart columns of the Second Division — ^the division 
 of the incisive Barlow, once of Sedgwick and 
 Howard and Gibbon. These men bring thoughts 
 of the terrible charge at the Dunker church at 
 Antietam, and that still more terrible up Marye's 
 Heights at Fredericksburg, and the check given 
 to the desperate onset of Pickett and Pettigrew in 
 the constmimate hour of Gettysburg. We think, 
 too, of the fiery mazes of the Wilderness, the death- 
 blasts of Spottsylvania, and mtirderous Cold 
 Harbor; but also of the brilliant fights at Sailor's 
 Creek and Farmville, and all the splendid action 
 to the victorious end. Here is the seasoned rem- 
 nant of the "Corcoran Legion," the new brigade 
 which, rushing into the terrors of Spottsylvania, 
 halted a moment while its priest stood before the 
 brave, bent heads and called down benediction. 
 
 Webb's Brigade of the Wilderness is commanded 
 
The Last Review 355 
 
 to-day by Olmstead; the second, by Mclvor — 
 veteran colonels from New York; the third by 
 Colonel Woodall of Delaware. This brigade knows 
 the meaning of that colorless phrase, "the casual- 
 ties of the service," showing the ever shifting 
 elements which enter into what we call identity. 
 Here are all that is left of French's old division at 
 Antietam, and Hays' at Gettysburg, who was 
 killed in the Wilderness, Carroll's Brigade at Spott- 
 sylvania, where he was severely wounded; Smyth's 
 at Cold Harbor, killed at Farmville. Into this 
 brigade Owen's, too, is now merged. They are a 
 museum of history. 
 
 Here passes, led by staunch Spatdding, the ster- 
 ling 19th Maine, once gallant Heath's, conspicuous 
 everywhere, from the death-strewn flank of Pick- 
 ett's charge, through all the terrible scenes of 
 "Grant's campaign," to its consummation at 
 Appomattox. In its ranks now are the survivors 
 of the old Spartan 4th, out of the "Devil's Den," 
 where Longstreet knew them. 
 
 Heads tmcover while passes what answers the 
 earthly roll-call of the immortal 5th New Hamp- 
 shire, famed on the stubborn Third Corps front 
 at Gettysburg, where its high-hearted Colonel 
 Cross fell leading the brigade, — among the foremost 
 in the sad glory of its losses, two hundred and 
 ninety-five men having been killed in its ranks. 
 
 What is that passing now, the center of all eyes, 
 — that little band so firmly poised and featured 
 they seem to belong elsewhere? This is what was 
 the 1st Minnesota, sometimes spoken of, for 
 
356 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 valid reasons, as the ist Maine; more deeply 
 known as of Gettysburg, where in the desperate 
 counter-charge to stay an overwhehning onset, 
 they left eighty-three men out of every hundred! 
 With ever lessening ranks but place unchanged at 
 the head of its brigade from Bull Run to Appomat- 
 tox, to-day a modest remnant. Colonel Hausdorf 
 proudly leads on its last march the ist Minnesota. 
 
 What wonder that, as such men pass, the out- 
 poured greetings take on a strangely mingled tone. 
 You could not say from what world they come, or 
 to what world they go. Not without deep throb- 
 bings under our breath, — ours who in heart belong 
 to them, — as if answering some far-off drum-beat 
 "assembly" summons. 
 
 But now comes on with veteran pride and far- 
 preceding heralding of acclaim, the division which 
 knows something of the transmigration of souls: 
 having lived and moved in different bodies and 
 under different names; knowing, too, the tests of 
 manhood, and the fate of suffering and sacrifice, 
 but knowing most of all the undying spirit which 
 holds fast its loyalty and faces ever forward. 
 This is the division of Mott, himself commanding 
 to-day, although severely wounded at Hatcher's 
 Run on the sixth of April last. These are all that 
 are left of the old commands of Hooker and Kearny, 
 and later, of our noble Berry, of Sickles' Third 
 Corps. They still wear the proud " Kearny patch " 
 — the red diamond. Bimey's Division, too, has 
 been consolidated with Mott's, and the brigades are 
 now commanded by the chivalrous De Trobriand 
 
The Last Review 357 
 
 and the sterling soldiers, Pierce of Michigan and 
 McAllister of New Jersey. Their division flag now 
 bears the mingled symbols of the two corps, the 
 Second and Third, — the diamond and the trefoil. 
 
 Over them far floats the mirage-like vision of 
 them on the Peninstila, and then at Bristow, Man- 
 assas, and Chantilly, and again the solid substance 
 of them at Chancellorsville, and on the stormy 
 front from the Plumb Run gorge to the ghastly 
 Peach Orchard, where the earth shone red with the 
 bright facings of their brave Zouaves thick-strewn 
 amidst the blue, as we looked down from smoking 
 Round Top. Then in the consolidation for the 
 final trial bringing the prestige and spirit and 
 loyalty of their old corps into the Second, — ^making 
 this the strongest corps in the army, — adding their 
 splendid valor to the fame of this in which they 
 merged their name. 
 
 Now come those heavy artillery regiments which 
 the exigencies of the service drew suddenly to 
 unexpected and unfamiliar duty, striking the fight 
 at its hottest in the cauldron of Spottsylvania, and, 
 obeying orders literally, suffered loss beyond all 
 others there: the ist Massachusetts losing three 
 hundred, and the ist Maine four hundred and 
 eighty-one officers and men in that single action. 
 This same ist Maine, afterwards in the rashly- 
 bidden charge at Petersburg, June 18, 1864, added 
 to its immortal roll six hundred and thirty-two 
 lost in that futile assault. Proudly rides Russell 
 Shepherd at their head, — ^leaving the command of a 
 brigade to lead these men to-day. Deep emotions 
 
358 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 stir at the presence of such survivors, — cherishing 
 the same devotion and deserving the same honor 
 as those who fell. 
 
 Here passes the high-borne, steadfast-hearted 
 17th Maine from the seething whirlpool of the 
 wheat-field of Gettysburg to the truce-compelling 
 flags of Appomattox. To-day its ranks are hon- 
 ored and spirit strengthened by the accession -of 
 the famous old 3d Regiment, — ^that was Howard's. 
 Some impress remains of firm-hearted Roberts, 
 brave Charley Merrill, keen-edged West, and 
 sturdy William Hobson; but Charley Mattocks is 
 in command in these days, — a man and a soldier, 
 with the unspoiled heart of a boy. Three of these, 
 college mates of mine. What far dreams drift 
 over the spirit, of the days when we questioned 
 what life should be, and answered for ourselves 
 what we would be! 
 
 Now passes the artillery, guns all dear to us; 
 but we have seen no more of some, familiar and 
 more dear: Hall's 2d Maine, that was on the cav- 
 alry front on the first day of Gettsyburg, grand in 
 retreat as in action, aftefwards knowing retreat 
 only in sunset bugle-call; Stevens' 5th Maine, 
 that tore through the turmoil of that tragic day, 
 and gave the Louisiana " Tigers" another cemetery 
 than that they sought on the storied hill; roaring 
 its way through the darkness of 1864, holding all 
 its ancient glory. Most of the rest we knew had 
 gone to the "reserve." 
 
 The pageant has passed. The day is over. But 
 we linger, loath to think we shall see them no more 
 
The Last Review 359 
 
 together, — ^these men, these horses, these colors 
 afield. Hastily they have swept to the front as of 
 yore; crossing again once more the long bridge and 
 swaying pontoons, they are on the Virginia shore, 
 waiting, as they before had sought, the day of the 
 great rettim. 
 
 We were to have one great day more. The Sixth 
 Corps had come up from its final service of perfect- 
 ing the surrender, and on this bright morning of 
 June 8th was to be held in,' review by honoring 
 thought and admiring eyes. We who had passed 
 our review were now invited spectators of this. 
 But there was something more. Something the 
 best in us would be passed in review to-day. 
 
 The military prestige of this corps was great, and 
 its reputation was enhanced by Sheridan's late 
 preference, well-known. The city, too, had its 
 special reasons for regard. The Sixth Corps had 
 come up from its proud place in the battle lines in 
 days of fear and peril, to save Washington. Be- 
 sides, this corps was part of the great Army of the 
 Potomac. 
 
 The President and all the dignitaries were on the 
 reviewing stand as before. Multitudes were filling 
 the streets, and the houses bloomed their welcome 
 from basement to summit. The ordering was 
 much as before. Colunm of companies; files 
 equalized. Space now permits some features of a 
 regular review. Instead of close order, the column 
 moves at wheeling distance of its subdivisions; 
 all commissioned officers salute; division and bri- 
 
360 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 gade commanders after passing the reviewing 
 stand, turn out and join the reviewing officer; the 
 bands also at this point wheel out and continue 
 playing while their brigade is passing. The am- 
 bulances, engineers, and artillery follow as before. 
 
 The symbol of the flag of this corps is the Greek 
 cross — ^the "square" cross, of equal arms. Sym- 
 bol of terrible history in old-world conflicts — 
 Russian and Cossack and Pole; token now of 
 square fighting, square dealing, and loyalty to the 
 flag of the union of freedom and law. 
 
 These are survivors of the men in early days with 
 Franklin and Smith and Slocum and Newton. 
 Later, and as we know them best, the men of Sedg- 
 wick; but alas, Sedgwick leads no more, except 
 in spirit! Unheeding self he fell smitten by a 
 sharpshooter's bullet, in the midst of his corps. 
 Wright is commanding since, and to-day, his 
 chief-of-staflE, judicial Martin McMahon. These 
 are the men of Antietam and the twice wrought 
 marvels of courage at Fredericksburg, and the long 
 tragedy of Grant's campaign of 1864; then in the 
 valley of the Shenandoah with Sheridan in his rally- 
 ing ride, and in the last campaign storming the 
 works of Petersburg — closing eleven hundred men 
 in fifteen minutes; masters at Sailor's Creek, four 
 days after, taking six thousand prisoners, with 
 Ewell and five of his best generals, — of them the 
 redoubtable Kershaw; in the van in the pursuit of 
 Lee, and with the Second Corps pressing him to a 
 last stand, out of which came the first message of 
 surrender. 
 
The Last Review 361 
 
 First comes the division of Wheaton ; at its head, 
 under Penrose, the heroic New Jersey Brigade which 
 at the Wilderness and Spottsylvania lost a thou- 
 sand one hundred and forty-three officers and men. 
 Next, and out of like experiences, the brigades of 
 Edwards and Hamblen, representing the valor of 
 Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Penn- 
 sylvania, and Wisconsin. 
 
 Now passes Getty's Division. Leading is War- 
 ner's Brigade, from its great record of the Wilder- 
 ness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor; then the 
 magnificent First Vermont Brigade, under that 
 sterling soldier, General Lewis Grant; as their 
 proud heads pass, we think of the thousand six 
 hundred and forty-five laid low at the Salient 
 of Spottsylvania. Now we think we see the 
 shadow of that "Light Division" with Bumham 
 storming Marye's Heights in the Chancellors- 
 ville campaign of 1863. For here, last, is the 
 Third Brigade, once of Neil and Bidwell, with 
 the fame of its brave work all through Grant's 
 campaign, led now by Sumner's ist Maine Vet- 
 erans, of which it is enough to say it is made up 
 of the old 5th, and 6th, and 7th Maine, — ^the hearts 
 of Edwards and Harris and Connor still beating 
 in them. Can history connote or denote anything 
 nobler in manliness and soldiership, than has been 
 made good by these? Commanding is the young 
 general, Tom Hyde, favorite in all the army, prince 
 of staff officers, gallant commander, alert of sense, 
 level of head, sweet of soul. 
 
 The infantry coltimn is closed by Ricketts' 
 
362 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Division, its brigades commanded by Trueman 
 Seymotir and Warren Keifer, names known be- 
 fore and since. These men too, knowing what 
 was done and suffered — shall we say in vain? — 
 in that month under fire from the Wilderness to 
 Cold Harbor; in these two battles losing out of 
 their firm-held ranks a thousand eight hundred and 
 twenty-five men; knowing also of the valley of 
 the Shenandoah and the weary windings of the 
 Appomattox. Of the heart of the country, these 
 men: Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, 
 Pennsylvania, Maryland. These twelve regiments 
 were to close that grand procession of muskets, 
 tokens of a nation's mighty deUverance, now to be 
 laid. down; tokens also of consummate loyalty and 
 the high manhood that seeks not self but the larger, 
 deeper well-being which explains and justifies 
 personal experience. 
 
 Now follows the artillery brigade, under Major 
 Cowan; eight batteries representing all the varie- 
 ties of that field service, and the contributions of 
 Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New 
 Jersey, and the regulars. What story of splendors 
 and of terrors do these grim gtms enshrine! 
 
 Now, last of all, led by Major van Brocklin, the 
 little phalanx of the 50th New York Engineers, 
 which had been left to help the Sixth Corps, pass 
 once more the turbid rivers of Virginia. Here 
 again, the train of uncouth pontoons, telling of the 
 mastery over the waters as of the land. This last 
 solemn passage now, waking memories of dark 
 going and dark returning, deep slumbering in our 
 
The Last Review 363 
 
 souls. Thanks and blessing, homely pontoons! 
 Would to God we had a bridge so sure, to bear us 
 over other dark waters — out of the pain — ^into the 
 Peace! 
 
 Home again. Sixth Corps! Home to your place 
 in our hearts! Encamp beside us once more; as 
 for so long we have made sunshine for each others' 
 eyes, and watched with hushed voices guarding 
 their rest; and wakened to the same thrilling call, 
 guided on each other through maze of darkness to 
 fronts of storm and over walls of flame! 
 
 Sit-down again. Sixth Corps! with the Fifth and 
 Second, holding dear to thought the soul and sym- 
 bol of the vanished First and Third. Sit down again 
 together. Army of the Potomac! all that are left of 
 us, — on the banks of the river whose name we bore, 
 into which we have put new meaning of our own. 
 Take strength from one more touch, ere we pass 
 afar from the closeness of old. The old is young 
 to-day; and the young is passed. Survivors of the 
 fittest, — ^for the fittest, it seems to us, abide in the 
 glory where we saw them last, — ^take the grasp of 
 hands, and look into the eyes, without words! 
 Who shall tell what is past and what survives? 
 For there are things bom but lately in the years, 
 which belong to the eternities. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SHERMAN'S ARMY 
 
 THE day after the review of our Second and 
 Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac 
 was appointed for a review on the same 
 ground of Sherman's famous Army of the West. 
 A feeling of comradeship and adnairation rather 
 than anything of jealousy or disposition for invid- 
 ious comparison took many of us over to witness 
 that grand spectacle. It was well worth a day's 
 devotion to see the men who had fought those 
 tremendous battles of the West and had marched 
 nearly two thousand miles, cutting through the 
 midst of an enemy's cotmtry with such demonstra- 
 tion of power that all obstacles fled before them. 
 And our admiration of the brilliant soldier who-had 
 the ability to plan and the resolution to execute 
 a movement so masterly in strategy and tactics 
 lent a certain awe to our emotion. 
 
 The preparations for the review and the forma- 
 tion of the column were much as they were for the 
 Army of the Potomac. The sky was wonderfully 
 beautiful and the earth gave good greeting under 
 foot. As before, the streets were lined and thronged 
 
 364 
 
Sherman's Army 365 
 
 with people, and the houses and especially the 
 stands in the vicinity of the President's House 
 were even more crowded than the day before. 
 The prestige of this army that had marched from 
 the Great River to the Sea, and thence up half the 
 Atlantic coast, bringing the fame of mighty things 
 done afar, stirred perhaps more the hearts and 
 imaginations of the people than did the familiar 
 spectacle of men whose doings and non-doings had 
 been an every-day talk, and who so often had 
 walked their streets in hurrying ranks or pitiftil 
 forlornness and thronged their hospitals, year 
 after year, in service and suffering, unboastfvil and 
 uncomplaining. But not a craven thought was in 
 oiir spirits because these that came after us were 
 preferred before us. We rejoiced in the recognition 
 given them and led in the applause. 
 
 Down the avenue potired the shining river of 
 steel, gay with colors and rippling with cascades of 
 mounted staff and burnished cannon. At the head 
 proud, stem Sherman, who with thoughtful kind- 
 ness had brought brave Howard, now ordered to 
 other important duty, to ride by his side in this 
 pageant. Following next is swarthy John Logan, 
 leading the Army of the Tennessee, and Hazen with 
 the Fifteenth Corps. Each division is preceded 
 by its corps of black pioneers, shining like polished 
 ebony, armed with pick and spade, proud of their 
 perfect alignment, keeping step to the music with 
 inborn stress. Significant frontispiece. Almost 
 equally interesting was the corps of foragers, 
 familiarly known as Sherman's "bummers, " follow- 
 
366 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 ing each brigade. These were characteristic repre- 
 sentatives of the career of that army, and they 
 tried to appear as nearly as possible like what they 
 were in that peculiar kind of service. Their dress, 
 and free and easy bearing, as well as their pack- 
 mtdes and horses with rope bridles, laden with such 
 stores as they had gathered from the country 
 through which they passed, was a remarkable 
 feature in a miHtary review. 
 
 We were told that General Sherman witnessing 
 ovir review had told his leading commanders that 
 our military appearance and even marching could 
 not be surpassed or even equalled by their own 
 men, and it was resolved that they would not make 
 the attempt to rival us in this regard but would 
 appear as nearly as possible as they looked while 
 ' ' marching through Georgia. " But they did both. 
 As was to be expected, their marching was superb, 
 both steady and free, not as if forced for the 
 occasion, but by habit or second nature : distances 
 maintained; lines perfectly "dressed" on the 
 "guide left"; eyes steady to the front. 
 
 Further evidence of the liberality of their 
 commanders in yielding something to the spirit of 
 liberty, or at least to the instinct so significantly 
 planted in man to establish relations with the 
 kingdoms or subjects of nature supposed to be 
 below him, appeared in the tokens of personal 
 freedom allowed the men in the midst of their 
 military discipline and the formalities of this 
 occasion. The monotony of these formalities was 
 strangely relieved by what seemed to us Army of 
 
Sherman's Army 367 
 
 the Potomac men hazardous breach of discipline. 
 A comical medley of pets had their part in the 
 parade and the applause: in one of the regiments 
 an eagle borne on a perch beside the colors; in 
 others, a cat, or a coon, favorably mounted for 
 reciprocal inspection, as well as the pack-niules, 
 ' laden, as was their wont, with stores, — ^but mostly 
 quite a variation upon those issued by the com- 
 missary or quartermaster, symbols of extin- 
 guished domestic dynasties, and lost civilizations. 
 In another place, a genre picture of the farmyard : 
 milch-cows, ponies, goats, and figuring proudly 
 in the center Chanticleer, loudly defying his mates, 
 — no longer rivals, — responding lustily from some 
 corresponding elevation, whether allies or aliens. 
 As a climax, with significance which one might 
 ponder, whole families of freed slaves, as servants, 
 trustfully leading their little ones, obedient to fate, 
 silent, without sign of joy; more touching in some 
 ways than the proud passing column; more touch- 
 ing in some deep ways than the spectacle of captive 
 kings led in the triumph of imperial Rome. 
 
 So pass in due order of precedence all the corps 
 of that historic army, — ^the men of ShUoh, of 
 Corinth, of Vicksburg, of Missionary Ridge, of 
 Chattanooga, Chickamauga, and Altoona. We 
 cannot name them familiarly, but we accord them 
 admiration. 
 
 And now comes a corps which we of the Army of 
 the Potomac may be pardoned for looking on with 
 peculiar interest. It is the Twentieth Corps, led 
 by Mower, the consolidation of our old Eleventh 
 
368 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 and Twelfth (Howard's and Slocum's), reduced 
 now to scarcely more than two divisions, those of 
 Williams and Geary. We recognize regiments that 
 had last been with us on the hard-pressed right 
 wing at Gettysburg: the 2d Massachusetts; 5th 
 and 20th Connecticut; 60th, I02d, 107th, 123d, 
 137th, 149th, 150th New York; the 13th New Jer- 
 sey; the nth, 28th, 109th, 147th Pennsylvania; 
 the 5th, 29th, 6ist, 66th, 82d Ohio; and the 3d 
 Wisconsin. We also gladly see the 33d Massa- 
 chusetts, with the gentle and chivalrous Under- 
 wood. Leading one of the brigades we recognize 
 the manly Coggswell of Massachusetts. These were 
 the men with Hooker on Lookout Mountain, in 
 "the battle above the clouds," whither also their 
 fame has risen. Not cloyed nor stinted is the 
 greeting we give to these returning men, — ^for 
 them, as for those that have passed on. Strong is 
 the brotherhood of a common experience, — ^the 
 kinship of a new birth to the broader life of a 
 regenerated cotmtry. 
 
 And now the shadows draw around us; for the 
 long summer day is scarcely long enough for the 
 mighty march of these far-marched mem General 
 Sherman has told us he mustered in these armies 
 when last gathered more than fifty-seven thousand 
 men. Well might the passing of so many fill all 
 the hotirs since the well advanced morning of the 
 start. 
 
 The shadows deepen. It has passed, — ^the 
 splendid pageant; it is gone forever,-^the magnifi- 
 cent host that streamed from the motintains to the 
 
Sherman's Army 369 
 
 sea; that flaming bolt which cut the Confederacy 
 in two, — or shall we say that left its deep track 
 upon the earth to mark the dark memories of those 
 years; or to shine forever as a token of saving 
 grace in the galaxy of the midnight sky? 
 
 The same high personages were on the reviewing 
 stand with the President as on the day before, — a 
 distingioished and august company. As General 
 Sherman with Howard and Logan after saluting 
 at the head of the column mounted the reviewing 
 stand and exchanged warm greetings with all, 
 Sherman took pains to make it manifest that he 
 refused to take Stanton's offered hand. This was 
 surprising to many, but those of us who while 
 encamped along the Southside Railroad after Lee's 
 surrender had occasion to know about the circum- 
 stances attending Sherman's negotiations with 
 Johnston for surrender, could not wonder at it. 
 When Sherman, supposing he was acting in accord- 
 ance with the policy of the government as he had 
 understood it from Lincoln, made terms for the 
 surrender of Johnston's army, involving matters 
 pertaining to the political status of the Southern 
 people and a policy of reconstruction, — ^undoubt- 
 edly therein exceeding any prerogatives of a mili- 
 tary commander, — ^the President disapproved of 
 them and gave directions for hostilities to be re- 
 sumed. But in carrying these into effect. Secretary 
 Stanton took an equally unwarrantable coiu-se in 
 his orders to Meade and Sheridan, and to Wright 
 (then at Danville), to pay no attention to Sher- 
 man's armistice or orders, but to push forward and 
 
370 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 cut off Johnston's retreat, while in fact Johnston 
 had virtually svtrrendered already to' Sherman. 
 Halleck repeated this with added disrespect; and 
 still more to humiUate Sherman, Stanton gave 
 sanction by his name officially signed to a bulletin, 
 published in the New York papers entertaining 
 the suggestion that Sherman might be influenced 
 by pecuniary considerations to let Jeff Davis get 
 out of the country. This was not short of infamous 
 on Stanton's part. Sherman meant so to stigma- 
 tize it, and he did, in the face of all on a supreme 
 public occasion. ' With our experience of discipUne, 
 we wondered what the next move of Stanton 
 would be. Sherman might have declined the 
 President's hand; but President Johnson had 
 assured him that he knew nothing about the 
 bulletins, as Stanton had not consulted anybody 
 nor shown them to any member of the Cabinet. 
 Had the President sanctioned them, I doubt not 
 Sherman would have resented the act from whom- 
 soever coming. Sherman was a "hale fellow 
 well met," but a hard fellow when unfairly 
 treated. 
 
 For all General Sherman's compliments on the 
 appearance of our army, he was quite sensitive 
 about the comparison of the intrinsic merits of his 
 army and ours. He did not hesitate to affirm that 
 his army was superior to ours in drill and discipline. 
 In precisely these points we could not agree with 
 him. It is true that his troops in passing in review 
 did keep their relative distances well, and their 
 shoulders square and eyes steady to the front. 
 
Sherman's Army 371 
 
 while it may be possible that some of our men may 
 have turned their eyes towards the personages 
 they were honoring, — as surely is the rule of 
 courtesy in civil society, with which these men 
 might be more familiar. But I think the General 
 made too wide an inference from the narrow field 
 of his observed instances. If comparisons are to be 
 instituted, it may be that in marching his troops 
 surpassed ours. That had been a large part of their 
 business; our occupations had been more varied. 
 We had done some running on several occasions, 
 and a good deal of fighting. As to drill and 
 discipline, the direct comparative evidence was 
 scanty. But the probability that the Army of the 
 Potomac would be deficient in these respects is 
 negatived by the presumption from the nature of 
 the case: in the military character of our com- 
 manders, and the exigency of the situation, which 
 demanded that the men should be made proficient 
 for their pressing need, and by every possible 
 means drilled, instructed, and inured to the dis- 
 cipline of the field; as also our proximity to the 
 capital and the eyes of exacting critics. Foreign 
 military observers had pronounced our driU and 
 discipline to be of the highest order. 
 
 It is possible that General Sherman may have 
 felt the usefulness of bold assertion on this subject 
 of his superiority in drill and discipline. We do not 
 deem the decision a vital matter for our fame; but 
 when invidious comparisons are announced by 
 high authority, we may justly call attention to the 
 evidence. In the qualities which make up human 
 
372 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 nature our Western compatriots were certainly 
 our equals. 
 
 After this review, things were not so pleasant 
 as they might be in our big camps along the river. 
 At first the greetings were such as good-fellowship 
 and novelty of intercourse prompted. But we 
 were soon made aware of a feeling we had not before 
 suspected on the part of many of our comrades of 
 the Western army. We certainly had never had an 
 intimation of it among the many Western men in 
 our own army. There seemed to be a settled dislike 
 to us, latent at least, among Sherman's men. In a 
 certain class their manner was contemptuous and 
 bullying. They threatened to come over and 
 ' ' burst us up, " and ' ' clean us out. ' ' Some directed 
 their objurgations upon the whole "East," — the 
 Yankees generally; and more against the Army of 
 the Potomac in particular. "You couldn't fight. " 
 — "You are babies and hospital cats." — "We did 
 all the marching and all the fighting. " — "We had to 
 send Grant and Sheridan up to teach you how to 
 fight." — "Lee licked you, and was running away 
 to get something to eat, poor fellow." — "You 
 wouldn't have caught him if we hadn't marched 
 two thousand miles to drive him into the trap." 
 On some of these points we might be a little tender; 
 though on the whole we thought the charge a 
 perversion of fact. 
 
 But we had some "Bowery Boys" and Fire 
 Zouaves in our army too; and what they wanted 
 was to get at these "Sherman's Bummers" and 
 settle the question in their own Cossack and Tartar 
 
Sherman's Army 373 
 
 fashion. In fact, so serious did the discord grow- 
 that the division commanders had to take positive 
 measures for defense, — as thoroughly as before on 
 the flanks of the Petersburg lines. We doubled 
 all camp guards, and detailed special reserves 
 ready for a rush; sleeping ourselves some nights 
 in our boots, with sword and pistol by our sides. 
 This was a serious condition of things. No wonder 
 Sherman asked to move his army to the other side 
 of the river. But the national authorities thought 
 this would savor too much of recognition of a new 
 secession, between the East and West. Such is the 
 strange nature, — ^the human, likeness of interest 
 holding masses together for the attainment of a 
 great common cause, in which they show both 
 loyalty and amity; but differences on a narrower 
 scale, quickly throw men into an attitude quite 
 antagonistic. It must be said that this hostile 
 feeling towards the East was not a general senti- 
 ment among our Western comrades, but only of a 
 certain class accustomed to put their individu- 
 ahstic sentiments into execution more frequently 
 and energetically than their sense of loyalty to the 
 country. For our part, surely, we had no dislike 
 to Western men, but qtiite the contrary, as very 
 many of them bore close relationship to our New 
 England families; and as to the merits of Sherman's 
 army we did not hesitate to do it justice or give it 
 sincere and generous praise. The taunts thrown 
 at us by men on that side met the retort from simi- 
 lar characters on our side that in their boasted 
 march to the sea they met only fat turkeys and 
 
374 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 sucking pigs. What little truth there might have 
 been under this satire we were not disposed to 
 inquire, but did our best to rebuke such expressions 
 and cultivate all around a spirit of broad loyalty 
 and common good-will; as to the claim that 
 "Sherman's army did all the fighting," we rested 
 on the testimony of official figures, which showed 
 the losses of Sherman's army from Chattanooga 
 to Atlanta, 31,687 men; Meade's losses for the same 
 period, from the Rapidan to Petersburg, 88,387. 
 Time, however, soon settled these bickerings by 
 separation and return to the duties of a common 
 citizenship. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE DISBANDMENT 
 
 THE last days of our encampment before 
 Washington gave us plenty of work, es- 
 pecially for the of&cers, making up returns 
 of government property: arms, clothing, tents, 
 supplies of all kinds, for which they were re- 
 sponsible and must give satisfactory account before 
 they could be honorably discharged. For the most 
 part the men were to take their equipments 
 with them, as a matter of courtesy, I suppose, 
 as these belonged to the United States. It was 
 fair that these veterans should be allowed to take 
 to their homes the arms they had honored, and 
 permission was given them to purchase at a nom- 
 inal value, it would not have been too much if 
 the Government had granted these with such 
 proud associations, to cheer the soldier in his re- 
 stuned citizenship, rather than consign them to 
 rust and oblivion in government stores. What I 
 think vfery reprehensible was the practice per- 
 mitted of selling overcoats at a cheap rate 
 among workmen willing to buy them. This was a 
 degradation of the uniform and of the men, and 
 
 375 
 
376 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 shotild never have been permitted. A soldier's 
 overcoat should stand for honor and not for 
 poverty. 
 
 The men were kept at such work, whether of 
 drill or other military duty, as the situation 
 allowed. But it wUl be understood that it was no 
 easy matter to keep things smooth, when so many 
 men were congregated, and the imperative motive 
 for discipline and good order was overpassed. 
 The visitors became embarrassing. It was well 
 and it was pleasant to afford to soldiers and 
 their friends an opportunity to compare the 
 methods of army life and home life. But these 
 "friends" became a very extensive immigration, 
 and some of them disturbed our soldiers with 
 temptations of things that cotold not be tolerated 
 either in camp or home. It was necessary to 
 send some of these out of camp limits under escort 
 and sometimes to greater distance; and finally to 
 establish rigorous regvilations about visitors. 
 
 On the other hand, visits of our officers and men 
 to the city soon became a feature of importance. 
 Fair attractions across the river, dinners, parties, 
 receptions, and other social entertainments, broke 
 in upon the monastic habits of even the higher 
 officers. A pleasant evening found most of them 
 on the civil side of the river. Applications for leave 
 of absence swelled to an inundation, and had to 
 be met with restrictions. At last the War Depart- 
 ment took notice of it; and one night at about two 
 o'clock an order came from Stanton requiring 
 every commanding officer to sign a receipt, on 
 
The Disbandment zn 
 
 the order presented; and the result showed that 
 only two generals of our camp were in their 
 quarters. 
 
 Now that the approaching close of our long and 
 eventful career brought upon us a mood of reflec- 
 tion, we gave more free thought to many things 
 we had "pondered in our hearts." Our minds 
 were still affected by disturbing impressions as to 
 the pecuHar management of tactics in our cam- 
 paign of the Appomattox. We could not under- 
 stand why the Army of the Potomac was so broken 
 up and buffeted about. No merely military reasons 
 for this could be conceived by us who certainly 
 were interested parties, and competent witnesses, 
 if not admissible as judges. This latter function 
 was not part of our duty, but to some degree our 
 privilege, and perhaps our right. We would not 
 criticize our orders when received, but were not 
 readily reconciled to measures which contradicted 
 common sense and, as we thought, military 
 economics. Why was the Army of the James 
 marched a long, hard jatmt from its position on the 
 right of the Petersburg lines and put in between the 
 Sixth and Second Corps of the Army of the Poto- 
 mac? Why not hold that army where it was next 
 to the James River, and let our Sixth and Ninth 
 Corps close in upon its left, and thus bring the 
 Army of the Potomac together, instead of wedging 
 it apart, and breaking up its continuity and 
 identity? And why, in the early operations of the 
 campaign, were matters so managed that the Fifth 
 Corps, which had by hard fighting made an impor- 
 
378 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 tant break on the right of the enemy's defenses, 
 should in the midst of this success be suddenly 
 withdrawn, abandoning all its advantages to go to 
 the support of Sheridan's cavalry, which was not at 
 any strategic front, — ^instead of having this cavalry 
 support and follow up our infantry advance as the 
 exigencies of the situation, specific field orders, and 
 the main objective of the campaign justified and 
 required? And why, in the pursuit of the broken 
 enemy, were the Fifth and Sixth Corps time and 
 again transposed from extreme right to extreme 
 left, and the converse, now under Meade, now 
 under Sheridan, they hardly knew at any moment 
 which? And why was the Fifth Corps halted six 
 miles short of Appomattox Station, to let the 
 Army of the James pass it to join Sheridan at the 
 front? There was another matter which perplexed 
 our thought, although it brought honor rather than 
 injury to the Fifth Corps. Why did Grant leave 
 the front of Meade and the Army of the Potomac 
 where the principal negotiations with Lee had 
 already begun, make the journey to Sheridan's 
 front where Ord of the Army of the James was 
 in chief command, and arrange for the formal 
 surrender to be carried out at this point? And 
 why were the two remaining corps of the Army of 
 the Potomac dispersed and detailed elsewhere, 
 leaving its commander to exercise the functions 
 of a mere adjunct office? Was this because the 
 sterling Humphreys and Wright could not be 
 made prominent without bringing in Meade, 
 already doomed to the shades? We were left to 
 
The Disbandment 379 
 
 our own opinions on these unanswered questions, — 
 and we took them home with us. 
 
 One question frequently brought to our minds 
 by outside inquirers was whether from our observa- 
 tion and experience, we regarded Grant as a great 
 general, — ^particularly in comparison with Lee. 
 While our opinion could in no degree affect the 
 reputation of either of these generals, it might 
 disclose our own competency as judges. Hence, as 
 these memoirs are supposed to reflect the intellec- 
 tual as well as the military character of our soldiers, 
 it may be proper to express what I understood to be 
 their sentiment on this question. 
 
 But first let us understand the meaning of our 
 principal term. There are two conceptions of 
 great generalship : one regarding practical material 
 effects; the other essential personal qualities. 
 In the former view we regard Attila, Genghis Khan, 
 and Tamerlane as great generals. In the latter 
 conception, — ^that of intrinsic qualities, — ^there are 
 two views to be taken. This rank may be accorded 
 to one who has the ability to accomplish great 
 things with moderate means, and against great 
 disadvantages; of this William of Orange is an 
 example. Or, on the other hand, it may be applied 
 to one who can command the situation, gather 
 armies, control resources, and conquer by main 
 force. Examples of this are familiar in history: 
 Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon. 
 
 A current and I think correct definition of great 
 generalship regards not so much the power to 
 command resources, or the conditions of a grand 
 
38o The Passing of the Armies 
 
 theater of action, as the ability to handle success- 
 fully the forces available, be they small or great. 
 And this, it will be seen, involves many qualities 
 not readily thought of as military. Among these 
 is economy in the expenditure of force. Another 
 is foresight, the ability to count the cost before- 
 hand and to discriminate between probabilities 
 and possibilities, — prudence might be the word 
 for this, did it not border on hesitation, which has 
 wrecked some reputations, if it has made others. 
 There is also astuteness, the ability to judge 
 characters and the probable action of an adversary 
 in given conditions. And we may add humanity, 
 regard for the well-being of the men employed in 
 military operations, which might come also under 
 the head of economics. 
 
 Having thus considered the qualities involved 
 in the term generalship, we will take up our opinion 
 of the title to it on the part of the two opposing 
 generals. 
 
 Grant was a strategist; he was not an economist. 
 He saw what was to be done, and he set himself to do 
 it, without being much controlled by consideration 
 of cost or probabilities. His mechanical calculations 
 often failed to hold good, — ^flank movements were 
 often belated, and so anticipated and neutralized 
 by the enemy's vigilance and celerity; direct front 
 attacks often proved direful miscalculation and 
 murderous waste. Great cost of human life in- 
 volved in a proposed plan was not taken into the 
 reckoning beforehand ; though regretted afterwards, 
 it was not given weight in laying plans following. 
 
The Disbandment 381 
 
 Though he studied lines of operations, foresight 
 was not a characteristic of his ; the resolve to do 
 overbore all negations, and obliterated the limits 
 of the possible. He so bent his energies on the 
 main object ahead that he did not consider the 
 effect of subordinate movements. He never seized 
 the moment to turn disaster into victory. He 
 seemed to rely on sheer force, rather than skillful 
 manoeuvre. Grant kept his own counsel, almost 
 to the extent of stolidity. He was rather critical 
 in his estimates of subordinates; but did not 
 study sufficiently the abilities and temperaments 
 of his antagonists; so he was sometimes out- 
 generaled — ^we do not like to say outwitted — ^by 
 them. We would rather say he was checkmated 
 by his own moves. He was tender-hearted, but 
 did not admit that sentiment into his military 
 calculations. We could see why he wanted Sheri- 
 dan and not Meade for his executive officer. 
 
 But for all this, and perhaps because of it, 
 Grant was necessary to bring that war to a close, 
 whether by triiunph of force or exhaustion of 
 resources. His positive qualities, his power to 
 wield force to the bitter end, must entitle him to 
 rank high as a commanding general. His concen- 
 tration of energies, inflexible purpose, tmselfishness, 
 patience, imperturbable long-suffering, his masterly 
 reticence, ignoring either advice or criticism, his 
 magnanimity in all relations, but more than all his 
 infinite trust in the final triumph of his cause, set 
 him apart and alone above all others. With these 
 attributes we could not call him less than great. 
 
382 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 Then looking at the question on another side, 
 the great scale of action and its incalculable results, 
 we shall find this judgment abundantly cor- 
 roborated. He had a great problem before him, 
 involving issues which the wrestlings of nations 
 and of ages had left unsolved, — ^the confirmation of 
 a new world in its service to mankind and the 
 purposes of God. Grant was a chosen minister 
 of the Divine wiU, and in a manner was the re- 
 sponsible agent for the execution of this vast design. 
 He doubtless felt this. 
 
 And what was revealed from on high he realized 
 in fact. What other men could not do, he did. 
 And to one who did this, to one who led these 
 mighty hosts to mighty ends, we must accord the 
 rank of great, whether as general or as man. This 
 is the verdict of those who were witnesses, — 
 servants and sufferers, — and it is our proud 
 remembrance. 
 
 Our estimate of General Lee was that he exem- 
 plified remarkable ability as a commander. In 
 military sagacity and astuteness we recognized his 
 superiority. In singleness of purpose, and patient 
 persistence, like our own great commander, he was 
 remarkable. In his constant care for his men, and 
 especially in conduct after disaster, he won our 
 respect and in some ways our sympathy. We 
 regarded him as a master in military economy, 
 making best use with least waste of material. 
 And in defensive operations we looked upon him 
 as a skilful tactician, taking best advantage of a 
 situation. 
 
The Disbandment 383 
 
 In offensive operations, however, involving 
 strategic considerations, he seemed to us not to 
 reach the ideal of generalship. His two positive 
 operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania, cul- 
 minating in the Antietam and Gettysburg cam- 
 paigns, must be accounted at best as failures, 
 detracting, we must say, from the highest concep- 
 tion of military ability. 
 
 At Antietam, where he made us the attacking 
 party, he showed his tactical skill in subjecting us 
 to terrible losses; at Gettysbtirg, where he chose 
 to take the offensive, he showed much less of that 
 skill; and the residt in each instance reflects on his 
 strategic ability, in not taking into account the 
 probabilities in such an enterprise. However, in 
 the main, considering the great responsibilities 
 with which he was charged and the great difficulties 
 which he had to meet and did meet so successfully 
 and for so long a time, we cannot consider him as 
 ranking less than great among generals, and of the 
 best of them. 
 
 As to personal qualities, Lee's utter unselfish- 
 ness, in fact his whole moral constitution, appeared 
 to us singularly fine. In his high characteristics 
 as a man he compelled admiration among those 
 who knew him, — even as we did, — ^and he will 
 command it for all the future. 
 
 We do not consider these statements of charac- 
 teristics as complete or conclusive. Whatever 
 may be the general or permanent estimate as to the 
 place of these great commanders, we simply record 
 this testimony from our own point of view. 
 
384 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 A consideration which had great influence on the 
 habits of thought which go to confirm character, 
 was the cause in which each side was engaged. On 
 both sides we had been fighting for what we re- 
 spectively held to be the nature of our political 
 life as a people. On the Confederate side they were 
 fighting for existing institutions, having historic 
 warrant, and, as they claimed, constitutional 
 warrant also. As the war had to be carried on in 
 the territory whence the challenge came, there was 
 opportunity to make the gist of their cause very 
 clear and expressible in quite concrete terms. They 
 could say, for instance, that they were fighting for 
 their homes. 
 
 On our side the same general principles were 
 affirmed; but their application was not limited to 
 the existing status or institutions; rather to guiding 
 and germinant ideals: the expressed intent and 
 purpose of our fathers in establishing the govern- 
 ment of one great people, and the inborn right of 
 every human being to make the best of himself, 
 and the duty of all to help him to this. That is 
 indeed a high ideal. 
 
 It was night around us; but overhead were the 
 stars. Things were in a chaos of transition; but 
 the forward look was clear. If in these later days 
 they have not yet been fully realized, these 
 principles have been clearly reaffirmed, and our 
 consecration has been made more binding by the 
 priceless cost of the vindication. 
 
 This vast concotu"se of citizen soldiers was now 
 about to be broken up, its individual constituents 
 
The Disbandment 385 
 
 scattered widely over the land, to resume their 
 part in the wholesome and helpful activities of social 
 life. Going forth from their homes at the call of a 
 supreme duty, should they return home better or 
 worse men than they went? It had been a careful 
 and congenial effort of those charged with the 
 care of the men in the field, not only to provide 
 for their personal material comfort and weU-being 
 as far as possible under the circumstances, but 
 also to encovirage the keeping up and even the 
 growth of the nobler qualities of character. The 
 narrow and rude life of the field in warfare, so far 
 from the saving and salutary influences of home, 
 does not tend to promote the highest personal 
 elements of character. Not that this life neces- 
 sarily leads to vice; but no doubt it gives place to 
 negligence of the better social instincts, and thus 
 tends to narrow and harden the better sensibilities. 
 Hence the great care that should be taken that our 
 young men who sacrifice so much for the country's 
 well-being shall suffer no detriment to their manly 
 worth. Such care was manifest in the army life 
 within our knowledge, — ^both in our army and 
 Lee's, and presumably in others. 
 
 Then as to the reactionary effect of warfare on the 
 participants, — ^in the first place we cannot accept 
 General Sherman's synonym as a complete con- 
 notation or definition of war. Fighting and de- 
 struction are terrible; but are sometimes agencies 
 of heavenly rather than hellish powers. In the 
 privations and sufferings endured as well as in the 
 strenuous action of battle, some of the highest 
 
 2S 
 
386 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 qualities of manhood are called forth, — courage, 
 self-command, sacrifice of self for the sake of 
 something held higher, — ^wherein we take it 
 chivalry finds its value; and on another side 
 fortitude, patience, warmth of comradeship, and 
 in the darkest hours tenderness of caring for the 
 wounded, and stricken — exhaustless and unceasing 
 as that of gentlest womanhood which allies us to 
 the highest personality. Such things belong to 
 something far different from the place or sphere 
 assigned in the remark of the eminent exemplar 
 of the aphorism. He was doubtless speaking of 
 war in its immediate and proximate effects as 
 destruction. He did not mean to imply that its 
 participants are demons. As to that, we may say 
 war is for the participants a test of character; it 
 makes bad men worse and good men better. 
 
 After a while we were not looked upon with such 
 wondering interest as at first. Nay, — ^we began to 
 be feared as likely to be in the way of those who 
 had a preemption right to civil favors. Now our 
 camps were thinning; our army was melting away. 
 We too, in this fading camp, had opportunity to 
 observe many things. Most manifest and largely 
 shown it was that not a few about the capital 
 were sorry the war was over; for this took the 
 "soft snaps" away from them, and the soft spots 
 out from under them. These persons soon pre- 
 tended to be sole judges and champions of loyalty. 
 There was a certain Demetrius once who made 
 silver shrines for Diana, and did not like Paul 
 because his teaching disturbed this sinecure. He 
 
The Disbandment 387 
 
 skillfully therefore turned the issue upon religious 
 loyalty. "Not only is this, our craft, in danger to 
 be set at nought," he cries, "but also the temple 
 of the great goddess Diana would be despised, and 
 her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and 
 the world worshipeth." And they all cried, 
 "Great is Diana of the Ephesians. " There were 
 some loud-mouthed "patriots" about the capital 
 whose zeal was rooted in the opportunity given by 
 the country's distress for their own personal greed, 
 and whose part in the service had been to get 
 government contracts, and fiurnish cheap meats and 
 musty and wormy hardtack and shoddy clothing 
 to owi worn, suffering soldiers, and even defective 
 arms elsewhere rejected, to fail them in the des- 
 perate moment of the country's defense. There 
 were concerns there and in some of the loyal States 
 who made it their business to furnish even "bogus " 
 men, — ^men never born, and christened only by 
 them in lists of fictitious names, sold to recruiting 
 agents for towns trying to fill their quota of men 
 for the depleted army in the darkest moment of 
 the country's need, — and appropriate to themselves 
 the high botmties paid by towns to "avoid the 
 draft." Under the loud professions of such as 
 these, it was easy to see the real regret and disgust 
 they felt when the country had won its deliverance 
 and the war was over, and their opportunity gone, 
 — until they could get a chance at new commissions 
 and agencies in the whirlpool of reconstruction 
 then setting in. 
 
 Disturbed at the thought that some deserving 
 
388 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 soldiers might be found by the Government for 
 places of trust and honor, these patriots began to 
 detract and undermine, by suggestions of "dis- 
 loyalty, " — an ambiguous phrase, meaning to them 
 not blind following of some party chief and boss. 
 
 The story that could be written of these things — 
 will not be written. Even the proofs have dis- 
 appeared in the free opportunities for this so easily 
 obtained. It was well known to some of us that 
 the records at the War Department had been 
 rummaged and that documents important for 
 truth and dangerous for pretenders had been with- 
 drawn and doubtless destroyed. It came to our 
 knowledge that even Treasury vouchers had been 
 tampered with and the rascality undetected. 
 
 The Government was kind : it meant to be just. 
 But in its great burden of responsibilities it could 
 not consider minor matters. The country had 
 been saved; other interests must adjust themselves 
 as best they could. 
 
 I feel that I must not omit to mention here a 
 species of injustice which afEected us within 
 strictly military aspects. I refer to the incon- 
 siderate or reckless bestowal of brevets. This was 
 very unjust to merit as well as injurious as policy. 
 We had seen considerable lack of equity in this 
 matter before the close of the war in the unevenness 
 of scale on which different commanders secured 
 brevets for their subordinates. One result of this 
 was the relative injustice among those holding 
 similar commands in different corps. Warm- 
 hearted generals like Shefidan would be generous 
 
The Disbandment 389 
 
 in their recommendation. Others of a severer 
 temperament would move more slowly. Clear- 
 seeing Humphreys, just and zealous for truth, 
 protested against this inequality and tried to 
 resist it, by recommending only for distinguished 
 merit. But the key-note had been set; and to 
 grant brevets for merit only would work practical 
 injustice considering that others had been so 
 promoted on other grounds, I have to confess that 
 in some vexation of spirit I resolved to keep up 
 with the best in recommending this honor for the 
 officers of my division at the close of the war. 
 But in the meantime the Government at Washing- 
 ton was adopting this sweeping policy. Everybody 
 was breveted one grade who asked for it, — 
 one general order embracing very many ranking 
 at one and the same date, which being arbitrarily 
 fixed at a time previous to the heavy fighting of 
 the last campaign, antedated the commissions of 
 several who had won that honor as a special dis- 
 tinction in battle. The meaning of the brevet is 
 honorable distinction; this leveled all distinction. 
 It destroyed the value of the brevet as recognition 
 of past service or incentive for the future. There 
 were those who had won their brevets while the 
 life blood ran from their veins, at the deadly front, 
 only to find themselves now equaled, parodied, 
 outranked even, by their own subordinates and 
 men who had scarcely seen the field at all. 
 
 I may remark that being included in that general 
 list referred to, although I had not asked for it 
 or in any manner suggested it, I declined this 
 
390 The Passing of the Armies 
 
 brevet, but in the first battle of the last campaign 
 receiving the brevet of Major-General for special 
 service reported by my corps commander, I did 
 not officially accept the latter until we reached 
 Washington, and the army was about to be mus- 
 tered out. So this brevet was not officially recog- 
 nized by the Government in the final orders for the 
 disbandment of the army and my assignment to 
 another corps. In truth I did not feel it now as a 
 token of honor or an object of desire. The Govern- 
 ment, however, thereupon sent me the later com- 
 mission, which purported to be something worth 
 receiving with responsive regard. 
 
 Only the "Congressional Medal of Honor" had 
 been held sacred, — ^not to be bought or sold, or 
 recklessly conferred. It was held to be the highest 
 honor, — recognition of some act of conspicuous 
 personal gallantry beyond what military duty re- 
 quired. Knowing what has happened with the 
 cross of the " Legion of Honor" in France, and how 
 sacred the "Victoria Cross" is held in England, we 
 trust that no self-seeking plea nor political pressure 
 shall avail to belittle the estimation of this sole- 
 remaining seal of honor whose very meaning and 
 worth is that it notes conduct in which manhood 
 rises above self. May this award ever be for 
 him who has won it, at the peril of life, in storm 
 of battle, but let us not behold the sublime spec- 
 tacle of vicarious suffering travestied by the im- 
 position of vicarious honors. 
 
 To resume the narrative, on the first day of 
 July, while encamped before Washington, we re- 
 
The Disbandment 391 
 
 ceived an order, which, though expected, moved 
 us most deeply. The first paragraph was this: 
 
 " Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, 
 
 " June 28, 1865. 
 
 " By virtue of special orders, No. 339, current 
 series, from the Adjutant General's office, this 
 army, as an organization, ceases to exist. " 
 
 What wonder that a strange thriU went through 
 our hearts. 
 
 Ceases to exist ! Are you sure of that? We had 
 lately seen the bodily form of our army, or what 
 remained of it, pass in majesty before the eyes of 
 men; while part of it was left planted on the slopes 
 of the Antietam, on the heights of Gettysburg, 
 in the Wilderness, on the far-spread fields and 
 lonely roadsides of all Virginia, — waiting the 
 Resurrection. 
 
 The splendor of devotion, glowing like a bright 
 spirit over those dark waters arid misty plains, 
 assures us of something that cannot die! The 
 sacrifice of the mothers who sent such sons was of 
 the immortal. All this must have been felt by 
 those who gave the order. The War Department 
 and the President may cease to give the army 
 orders, may disperse its visible elements, but 
 cannot extinguish them. They will come to- 
 gether again under higher bidding, and will 
 know their place and name. This army will 
 live, and live on, so long as soul shall answer 
 soul, so long as that flag watches with its stars 
 
392 The Passing of the Annies 
 
 over fields of mighty memory, so long as in its 
 red lines a regenerated people reads the charter 
 of its birthright, and in its field of white God's 
 covenant with man. 
 

 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iRtJII^Wft 
 
 fy tuarr 
 
 
 
 J* 
 
 
 
 ""liMimL 
 
 LirMHff 
 
 
 
 ■■■■wyi 
 
 
 
 •"rr- 
 
 
 
 
 i-EB - 
 
 8 !'??''■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAVLORO