Thursday, April 2, 2015

April 10, 1865---THE LONG SURRENDER: The War Is Over. The Fighting Goes On.



APRIL 10, 1865:        

“So many of our noble young men perished for nothing!” --- Fanny Young, a Richmond Confederate



I



Although the Civil War had “ended” the day before with the surrender of Robert E. Lee to General Ulysses S. Grant, the fighting went on. In an era before Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, social media, cellphone cameras, television, radio, or even wireless telegraphy, only a few thousand people, most centered around Appomattox Court House, Virginia and in Washington D.C., had even an inkling that anything had changed.







Throughout the United States, the shooting (and the killing) went on. In Moccasin Swamp, North Carolina and Smithfield, North Carolina, Union forces engaged in small but bloody battles with General Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A.’s men. In both engagements, overwhelming numbers told, and the Confederates were forced to fall back. In the western towns of Winston N.C. and in Salem, N.C., local residents raised the white flag rather than have General George Stoneman U.S.A.’s cavalry burn the two small cities.







In Benton, Alabama and Lowndesborough, Alabama, the Union’s First Indiana Cavalry and the First Wisconsin Cavalry skirmished inconclusively with irregular Confederate forces under the overall command of General Richard Taylor.







Retreating after his defeat at Selma, Alabama, a badly-wounded Nathan Bedford Forrest falls upon a unit of the Fourth Union Cavalry near the Mississippi border and puts them all to the sabre.







Along the Rio Grande, the Union and the Confederacy continued what had recently become a bizarre ad hoc alliance in support of free Mexican forces led by Benito Juarez against the imperial forces of Maximilian I, France’s puppet Emperor. Today, the Blue and the Gray, operating together, feinted, allowing Juarez’s men, who were seeking refuge north of the river, to escape pursuit.      







A Bahamas-based blockade runner put into port at Key West, carrying a cargo of rifles and ammunition for the South. The harbormaster, a Unionist paid in gold, when asked saw nothing.




 

II



Even as spontaneous celebrations are breaking out throughout the Northeastern United States, President Lincoln is suffering through a particularly acrimonious Cabinet meeting. Lincoln’s plan to allow the Virginia Legislature to convene in order to take Virginia out of the Confederacy, has raised a firestorm of debate, the burning core of which is in this room.



Edwin Stanton is nearly apoplectic with rage at the President, pounding the table and shouting that Lincoln’s entire policy of not recognizing Confederate-convened governments throughout the war is imperiled by what Stanton refers to as a “harebrained” scheme. Lincoln counters that he does not intend to recognize the “Secesh” Legislature as legitimate, only to ask the men who are acting as the constituted State Legislature for Virginia to take action upon his behalf.







It is a lawyer’s nicety. Stanton retorts that Lincoln is hairsplitting, that it will amount to recognition no matter what, and that the Confederacy will be re-empowered if Lincoln extends recognition to any of the rebellious governments of its several States. 


Other Cabinet Secretaries back Stanton. There is a fear expressed that Lincoln’s plan may even result in international recognition of the Confederacy at one second to midnight, and that such recognition could be parlayed into many years’ more war.  



Everyone agrees that they understand Lincoln’s desperate desire for peace, admits that they all share it, but everyone warns him that his ill-considered plan may have precisely the opposite effect he intends. When Lincoln admits that he has already wired the Military Governor of Virginia to allow the rebel Legislature to convene, the room explodes.







Lincoln looks for solace to his usually-phlegmatic Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, a madly-bewhiskered man whom Lincoln usually calls “Father Neptune.”  Welles is always Lincoln’s closest ally in Cabinet debates, but even Welles shakes his head at the President today. Besides, Welles asks reasonably, why not call the Unionist State Legislature sitting in Alexandria into session? Why depend on John Campbell’s rebel friends?



It is a good question, and Lincoln finally, ruefully, admits defeat, saying that he had “perhaps made a mistake” in being so overeager as to deal with the Secesh delegates.





III



What the President and his Cabinet were not aware of was that while they hotly debated the legality of the Virginia Legislature, the room might really have exploded.






A Confederate “explosives expert,” Thomas F. Harney by name, was arrested by Illinois cavalrymen, along with a number of Mosby’s Rangers on the road into Washington.



Harney, a member of the Confederate Torpedo Bureau, had been funded by Confederate agent John Surratt to blow up the White House by placing several hogsheads of gunpowder (in barrels marked “flour”) in the White House storeroom directly beneath the Cabinet Room. Harney is arrested with detailed sketches of the White House floor plan on his person.







What Harney did not know was that the odds of his succeeding were poor. The layout of the basement and the reinforced first floor of the White House would have probably caused the force of the blast to move horizontally rather than vertically, causing damage to the building but less damage to the Cabinet Room than Harney wished.  The current structure of the White House, rebuilt after World War II, will not allow for such a scheme.







No one knows who authorized the Harney mission; like many another Confederate covert operation, its roots fade into the inky blackness that surrounds them.





IV



Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee meet again in Appomattox. The rain which had threatened on the Ninth has become a downpour on the Tenth. Regardless of the weather, the McLean House has become the epicenter of a reunion of the West Point Class of 1846, and Union and Confederate officers who have not spoken in four years find each other and begin rebuilding friendships undone by the war. 







Men of the line are also having reunions. Led by Border State men from Maryland, Federals and Confederates are crossing into each others’ camps seeking out brothers, cousins, sons, uncles and fathers unmet in four years. Tears of joy flow when they find each other unscathed, and tears of sorrow flow when they do not, and when bad news of home reaches long-absent ears.







Billy Yanks, shocked at the condition of their Confederate counterparts begin carrying extra rations across the lines. A few jokes are told, tentatively. Soon men in blue and gray are walking arm in arm around the villages of Appomattox Court House and Appomattox Station, heedless of the weather.







In Wilmer McLean’s home, General Lee puts the finishing touches on his Farewell Address, General Orders Number 9, which, like his idol George Washington’s, will be memorized and recited by generations of southern schoolchildren. It reads:



After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.



I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to this result from no distrust of them; but feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen.



By the terms of the agreement, officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from a consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I earnestly pray that a Merciful God will extend to you His blessings and protection.



With an unceasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your Country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous consideration for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell.  







Sitting at the same table this time, Grant and Lee struggle over the details of the formal surrender of The Army of Northern Virginia. Grant insists there must be a formal ceremony in which all the men can participate. Although Lee is initially chary of the idea, Grant is persuasive, and when Grant gives Lee a verbal description of what he envisions, Lee realizes that the ceremony will not be a humiliation but an honorarium to his men. It is scheduled for the Twelfth of April.







The five Articles of Agreement Relating To The Surrender Of The Army Of Northern Virginia read as follows:



Appomattox Court House Virginia

April 10, 1865



Agreement entered into this day in regard to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia to the United States Authorities.



1st The troops shall march by Brigades and Detachments to a designated point, stock their Arms, deposit their flags, Sabres, Pistols, etc. and from thence march to their homes under charge of their Officers, superintended by their respective Division and Corps Commanders, Officers, retaining their side Arms, and the authorized number of private horses.



2. All public horses and public property of all kinds to be turned over to Staff Officers designated by the United States Authorities.



3. Such transportation as may be agreed upon as necessary for the transportation of the Private baggage of Officers will be allowed to accompany the Officers, to be turned over at the end of the trip to the nearest U.S. Quarter Masters, receipts being taken for the same.



4. Couriers and Wounded men of the artillery and Cavalry whose horses are their own private property will be allowed to retain them.



5. The surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia shall be construed to include all the forces operating with that Army on the 8th inst., the date of commencement of negociation [sic] for surrender, except such bodies of Cavalry as actually made their escape previous to the surrender, and except also such forces of Artillery as were more than Twenty (20) miles from Appomattox Court House at the time of Surrender on the 9th inst.



Neither Grant nor Lee will be present for the formal surrender ceremony (despite many historical representations to the contrary); Grant will have returned to Washington D.C. to report to Abraham Lincoln and Lee, having gotten word that his sons Custis (a P.O.W. shortly to be released) and Rooney (M.I.A., who surrenders on this very day) are safe, will be returning to Richmond and to the arms of his beloved Anna.



As they part, Grant asks Lee if, as General-in-Chief of the Confederacy, he can surrender all the armies of the Confederacy. Lee demurs for a reason Grant respects. He cannot do so, he says, without consultation with his civilian Commander-in-Chief. But, Lee promises that he will devote all his efforts to pacifying the country and bringing the people back into the Union.



Lee is as good as his word. Not long after Appomattox, a young ex-Confederate, upon returning to his allegiance to the United States, is castigated by his father, also a veteran:







“You have disgraced the family!”



“But Father, General Lee asked it of all of us.”



“Oh,” said the older man. “That alters the case. Whatever General Lee says is all right.”



And Lee’s last letter to Jefferson Davis, written on this day, advises the Confederate President to “. . . [S]ave useless effusion of blood . . . [M]easures [should] be taken for the suspension of hostilities and the restoration of peace.”





V



Not all men in The Army of Northern Virginia follow Lee’s lead. A number slip off overnight to join General Joseph E. Johnston C.S.A.’s unsurrendered Army of Tennessee in North Carolina. Other men leave the army to head for hideouts in Lynchburg or in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains from which they can continue fighting. Some seek service with Colonel John Mosby in northern Virginia, who likewise has not surrendered.  






General Fitzhugh Lee (Robert E. Lee’s cousin and subordinate) later told the story of crossing paths with a flinty Confederate who was walking toward Appomattox with his gun across his shoulders ---



“Where are you going?” asked Lee, who was in shirtsleeves without insignia.



“I’ve been on furlough these last two months, and I hear tell that old Bob Lee’s army is up around Appomattox. I’m gwine back to fight.”



“Well, you can go back,” said Lee. “But not to fight. General Lee has surrendered.”



“Naw,” answered the soldier. “Yaw must be thinkin’ of that bastard Fitz Lee. Bob Lee would never surrender to no Yankees, and that’s a fact.”



When, after Appomattox, General Joshua L. Chamberlain U.S.A., the future Governor of Maine, told General Henry Wise C.S.A., the former Governor of Virginia, that, “Brave men may become good friends,”  Wise answered plainly:



“You may forgive us but we won’t be forgiven. There is rancor in our hearts which you little dream of. We hate you, sir!”




VI



Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet are just sitting down to dinner with the Sutherlin family when a courier bursts into the dining room with the news of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Davis is flabbergasted. Immediately, plans are put in motion for Davis and his Government to move south into North Carolina, where Joseph Johnston’s army can protect them. Davis rushes to pack. No one knows how far (or near) the Yankee armies may be.
 

Mrs. Sutherlin asks her President, “Mr. Davis, does General Lee’s surrender mean that the war is ended?”



“Not at all,” Davis replies. “We will fight it out to the Mississippi.”