“Let the thing be pressed.” --- Abraham Lincoln
I
After returning to City Point
from Richmond, President Lincoln announces his desire to visit Petersburg. His
visit to Petersburg is short and unmemorable, forgotten to history in
comparison to the drama of his stay in Richmond.
Also forgotten is a brief
episode which took place as the President of the United States was motored by
gunboat up the Appomattox River toward Petersburg and toward Robert E. Lee’s
receding army. As he stood on the deck of the U.S.S. MALVERN President Lincoln
took note that the ship was negotiating the stream quite close to the river’s
northern shore.
“Are there mines and
obstructions here as on the James?” he asked.
“Oh, no, sir,” answered a
sailor. “The south shore is still held by Confederate militia and pickets.
General Lee’s army is somewhere directly in front of us. We keep to this side
of the river so we don’t draw fire. We’ve been shot at along this stretch
before, but their rifles can’t reach us at this range. The far side of the
river is enemy territory, Mr. President.”
The President digested this for
some time as the shoreline slipped by. After the MALVERN bested a bend in the
river, Mr. Lincoln said, “I would like to go ashore. On the south shore.”
Admiral David Dixon Porter, who
had appointed himself Lincoln’s guide and protector during his visits to
Richmond and Petersburg tried vainly to talk Lincoln out of it.
“Mr. President, such a thing is
far too dangerous.”
“More dangerous than visiting
Richmond?”
“Well, sir, yes, quite
possibly. We’d already taken Richmond. Here, this is still the front line.”
The President was firm. “That,”
he pointed to the far shore, “is United States territory, and the President of
the United States need have no fear to go there or anywhere in the country.
Please put me ashore. I won’t be long.”
“Sir, you could be killed or
captured.”
“No, Admiral. Not today. It is
not my time yet. A man knows these things.”
After a few more minutes’
argument, Porter reluctantly ordered the MALVERN to anchor near the southern
shore of the Appomattox, and Lincoln, along with his now-regular Marine
guardsmen, was put over the side in the Admiral’s gig.
When Lincoln stepped ashore, he
uttered a single word, “Virginia,” and after a few moments of gazing about him,
told his guardsmen, “Boys, I want to be alone for a moment. Do not follow me. That is an order from your
Commander-in-Chief. You need not worry. I can take care of myself.”
And with that, the President of
the United States vanished into a stand of trees.
The next few minutes crawled by
with excruciating slowness for the Marines. A minute no doubt felt like a
quarter-hour to the President’s worried guard. It was probably no more than
five minutes though, before Lincoln reappeared. “We can go now. Thank you.”
Abraham Lincoln never confided
to anyone in the few short remaining days of his life what he had thought or
done in those few minutes alone on “enemy” soil. It’s likely that he claimed all of Virginia
--- and all of the South --- as sovereign United States territory. If that is
what he did, it is difficult to imagine that he spoke the words of a conqueror
or a colonizer planting an alien flag. Rather, imagination lends itself to the
image of Lincoln as a supplicant treading on holy ground; perhaps he even
removed his shoes.
History gives us only one
obscure hint: After returning from his trip to Petersburg, Lincoln never
uttered the word “enemy” again, and he actively discouraged anyone else from
doing so. When Lincoln saw Confederate
P.O.W.s at City Point upon his return there, he took in their ragged, skeletal
appearance, took in the sight of them gnawing on “bread as hard as hard
cheese,” and muttered, “The poor fellows,” to General Grant, before ordering
that all Confederate prisoners be given full, nourishing meals and decent
clothes. And after his return to Washington on the ninth of the month, he
chided Edwin Stanton about Stanton’s use of the word “enemy”: “We must never, ever say that word again. We
must never think it.”
II
Lincoln’s nemesis is, like him,
a man who does not use the word “enemy.” Robert E. Lee habitually refers to the
Yankees as “those people,” and today “those people” are bedeviling him beyond
reckoning. Today is, as it will become known, “The Black Thursday of The
Confederacy.”
Black Thursday begins in
darkness as The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the village of Amelia
Court House. Their stay there has been a disaster. Not only did the expected
commissary train never arrive with the half-million rations expected, but a
wagon train of food and supplies was destroyed by Federal cavalry nearby. And
worse yet, if things could be worse, Robert E. Lee’s decision to remain in the
town for the better part of 24 hours has allowed the main body of the pursuing
Union troops to draw even with the Army of Northern Virginia.
To make up for lost time, Lee
decides on a night march to begin ‘round about midnight. But even this decision
turns out to be a bad one. Lee’s men haven’t had any kind of a real meal in
almost a week now. Skeletal men in the trenches at Petersburg have become
wasted. Simply by moving forward they are consuming calories they cannot
replace. Their bodies are in that last stage of starvation where they feed on themselves.
Muscle tissue suddenly and completely vanishes, and with it the last of their
stamina. A chronic lack of Vitamin A means that most of the men are
night-blind. As they march they step in ruts, lose their balance, twist ankles,
fall. They collide with each other in the pitch darkness. Hunger-induced
vertigo makes them logy and lightheaded, nauseous. Many are developing dry
heaves since their empty stomachs can disgorge nothing.
It is an eerily silent army for
a line of almost 20,000 men. Almost no one has the energy to talk,
concentrating instead on putting one dragging foot ahead of the other. There
are still a few hardcore wisecrackers. One Mississippian announces, “I’m in
this fight because I love my country, but if this war is over I swear I’ll
never love no damn country this way again.”
If
this war is over . . . . A
growing awareness begins to fill men’s minds.
The men begin to drop
haversacks and cartridge boxes; they are too heavy to carry. Lee’s army molts
its warrior skin, becoming more and more with every passing moment just a line
of struggling, brave, men. One after another, men struggle to the swales,
planting their rifles upside-down by the bayonet point into the Virginia loam.
Come daylight, the rifles will stand in a crooked line of strange sentinel
trees, memorials of the ultimate futility of war.
In the night, many men fall
away from the column; they can go no further. Some faint even as they struggle
forward. A few begin to exhibit metabolic failures, becoming edematous,
struggling to breathe. A few of the weakest simply die. Lee’s retreat is
becoming a death march.
At the head of the line, Lee
rides on. Traveller is tired and hungry and much thinner than he was, but he
too bravely puts each equine foot forward. Lee is enervated. He has not slept
more than a few hours a night since the Battle of Fort Stedman. The pain in his
chest cavity is constant and aching. He is red-eyed and haggard, and living on
little food, eating more than most of his men only because his officer corps
knows that if Lee falls from the saddle in exhaustion the army will fall too.
The fifty-eight year old
General still has the love of his men. He left more than a few exhausted
fellows back in Amelia Court House, men who wept at the thought of
disappointing their beloved General. Even now, men who fall behind are calling
out in varying soft Southern accents, “Ahm sorry, Bobby Lee, but I cannot go no
fuhthar.”
Their love perhaps has blinded
them to Lee’s increasingly poor judgement. Lack of food and of rest has
impaired Lee as much as it has impaired most of his men. The reality is that
the war might have ended --- should have
ended --- at Amelia Court House. To an army on the move, food is a more
important and potent weapon than a rifle, and to ask men to fight without it is
nothing short of madness. But Lee has convinced himself that the missing food
train is at Burkeville --- or at least that more food can be gotten through
Burkeville. The town lies right on crossing of the Richmond and Danville Line
and the Southside Railroad. Either the food train from Richmond is there or
another can be sent quickly from Danville, the new Confederate capital, a town
bursting at the seams with tens of thousands of tons of war materiel and
commissary reserves. The train from Danville is there. Or will arrive. Perhaps
both trains are waiting. Lee makes his men no promises. He just asks them to
trust in him. And they do.
Less than 20 miles separate
Amelia Court House and Burkeville, but the road runs through Union-held
Jetersville. Lee must detour around that town, and in doing so double the
distance his men must go. It will be hard, but . . .
It is a little-known fact that
Walter H. Taylor II, Lee’s Adjutant throughout the war, claimed in his memoirs
(published after Lee’s death) that Lee had never requested that a food train be
sent to Amelia Court House. Taylor, in fact, remembered no orders relating to
Amelia Court House at all. Given that Taylor transcribed most of Lee’s Orders,
his recollections would appear to be definitive. And there are no Orders
regarding Amelia Court House in the Official Records. But the O.R. is
notoriously incomplete regarding Confederate records at the war’s end (many had
been burned in Richmond). And in fact, Lee’s four widely separated columns all
came together at Amelia Court House. They could not have done so without
orders, even verbal ones. What Taylor did
recall was an ambiguously-worded request that “Materials sufficient for the Army of Northern Virginia to maintain its
effective war footing” be sent up the line. And in fact, it appears this
was done. The train containing caissons, ammunition and horse tack might have
qualified in the mind of a harried Confederate war clerk sitting in the midst
of a burning riotous city as “materials sufficient to
maintain an effective war footing.” Ask anyone, and they will think of weapons
as critical to an army. Food will be an afterthought. Perhaps that is what
happened at Amelia Court House.
If so, it would not have been
the first time that Lee issued an obscure Order that cost his side the battle
and ultimately the war itself. Jefferson Davis himself (and numerous subsequent
historians) noted “Lee’s habit of issuing broad orders and leaving the details
to subordinates.” Recall, if you will, Lee’s order to Richard Ewell at
Gettysburg to take Little Round Top “if practicable.” At the time the order was
issued, Little Round Top was unoccupied by anyone, but Ewell did not think its
seizure was “practicable.” Shortly thereafter, the Union took the height, and
it became the anchor of the Union line on the second day of that terrible
contest.
Lee, tired and in pain those
three days, lost Gettysburg for the want of a nail. And now he is about to lose
the war for want of another. The man must, on some level, know it. Usually
ramrod-straight and impeccable in appearance, he is slumping and
slovenly-looking. And just like at Gettysburg, Lee’s impaired judgement is not
allowing him to see the full picture of what is going on. For the Union
attacks, constant and localized, and not merely picket skirmishes. Phil
Sheridan is testing Lee’s line all along its length, probing for weaknesses.
And he is finding them. Taking captive the large majority of the men who have
dropped out of Lee’s line of March, Sheridan questions them, is shocked at what
he sees and hears, and his understanding now is that the Army of Northern
Virginia is fragmenting moment by moment. He sends a message to Grant who
passes it on to Lincoln:
“If
the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender.”
Lincoln responds:
“Let
the thing be pressed.”
 |
| General Grant (lower left with hat on) confers with General Meade (seated) at City Point |
III
Despite his increasing
awareness of Lee’s precarious condition, Ulysses S. Grant is taking no chances.
Lee has slipped his neck from the noose too many times for Grant to be
complacent about the outcome of the macabre chase that is occurring in central
Virginia. And Lee has not only slipped his neck from the noose; time after
time, on the seeming verge of defeat Lee has managed to wring a hard a bloody
victory out of their contests. Grant is still convinced that somehow “Lee will
strike a blow that will fall with savage force” on The Army of The
Potomac.
 |
| Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee circa 1859 |
Grant knows the clock is
ticking against Lee, but he also knows that that the clock is ticking against
him. If Lee manages to escape Grant this time around, popular opinion in the
war-weary North may press for peace.
 |
| Lt. U.S. "Sam" Grant in Mexico, 1847 |
Or, Lee may just reach the Blue
Ridge Mountains. If The Army of Northern Virginia can do that, then it can
splinter into a thousand Partisan Ranger Units. Grant will be fighting a host
of Mosbys. Or nightmarishly, he will be fighting ten score Mosbys and numberless
William Quantrills and Bloody Bill Andersons. The war could go on for years,
generations even; entire clans of bushwhackers could be awaiting their birth,
and the United States could become one vast Missouri, a failed State of
continental proportions.
Grant knows he is winning, but
the winning is hard, and perhaps it will not be total. “Lee is in a bad fix,”
Grant tells his staff, “but if I were in his place, I think I could still get
away with part of my army.” Grant sighs. “I suppose Lee will.”
Then the stocky General squares
his shoulders. “I don’t want to follow him. I want to get ahead of him.”
Orders are sent to Philip
Sheridan to step up the pace.
IV
Suffering from the same strange
battlefield myopia that afflicted him at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee compounded
his mistake of spending too much time at Amelia Court House.
This mistake, like the others
Lee would make in the coming hours, was the right thing to do if all
other things had been equal. But they were not equal. Lee did not seem to grasp
just how exhausted and hungry his men really were, how much their lack of food
had caused them mental confusion, or just what the positions of the Confederate
army and the Federal army were, relative to each other, and both figuratively
and literally. His Military Intelligence system broke down completely on Black
Thursday, and he marched blind.
Lee ordered his column to
divide into three parallel lines. This would have been the smartest thing to do
if indeed he was fighting off pickets, skirmishers, and small troops of
reconnaissance in force. In three parallel columns his forces then could have
been mutually supportive.
But Lee was not fighting small
forces. He was battling three immense Union columns of The Army of The Potomac,
each bigger than his entire army combined. Until Lee divided his forces the
three Union columns had struggled to coordinate their movements against the
smaller single Confederate line. By dividing his strength Lee actually aided
his enemies. His decision allowed each Union column to act independently in attacking
its corresponding Confederate column.
Lee also mistook the positions
of his columns versus the Federal columns. The Federals were not, as he
believed, behind him and in pursuit of him. In fact, they were in parallel,
shadowing him. He had Union troops to both the north and south of his central
line of march, bracketing him. And he was marching into the Appomattox River
Valley, a narrowing funnel in which he gave U.S. Grant the power to decide
where the Southern army could and couldn’t go.
Perhaps not worst, but no good
at all, was the fact that as soon as the main line divided itself into columns
communications almost completely broke down between them as the men tottered
off in different directions. Lee had only imperfect ideas of where things were
happening and when they were happening. “The woods are full of stragglers” the
Federal soldiers reported as Confederates, lost in the dark, blundered into
them.
Things were already very bad
for the Army of Northern Virginia, but at least Lee’s lines were moving, if
sluggishly and fitfully, toward Burkeville, where the expected commissary
trains waited at the Danville & Richmond Railroad depot.
The first of a series of
disasters that would unmake the Army of Northern Virginia began to unfold at
4:00 A.M. near Burkeville, when Union forces captured the train station there
(rumor had it that at least one food train was seized too). The Yankees now stood between The Army of
Northern Virginia and the Confederate capital at Danville, cutting Lee off from
his Government.
Instead of trying to move on
Burkeville, Lee immediately issued orders --- which even he later admitted were
“the most cruel marching orders ever issued” --- to bypass Burkeville and head
for Lynchburg, almost eighty miles away.
General E. Porter Alexander,
one of Lee’s most trusted men, tried vainly to talk Lee out of issuing the
Order to march on Lynchburg, particularly by the route Lee designated, which
necessitated crossing the Appomattox River. Such a crossing, Alexander pointed
out, was a bottleneck that would slow the army, a spot where the Yankees could
easily mount an attack. Lee, most uncharacteristically, sent him away with
sharp words: “I know the men and animals
are exhausted, but it is necessary to tax their strength. I have time to
consider what you’ve said. Now go and attend to your orders, Mr. Alexander.”
Lee was tired. He was
physically and mentally exhausted and in increasing pain from “the rheumatism”
that plagued him. But he was also tired of chasing will-o’-the-wisp rumors of
food. At least he knew for a certainty that Lynchburg would have food.
The men in the ranks who hailed
from the Shenandoah Valley were not so certain. The Valley was a desert now,
and Lynchburg, fought over so many times, was practically a ghost town. And
though they had faith in Lee, they had no
faith in the Confederate Commissary Department. If it still even existed at
this point. No one really knew.
Lee’s Orders directed the men to
head for a place called High Bridge across the Appomattox River. He dispatched General
James Longstreet to seize the bridge. Once over the bridge, Lee calculated that
the army could re-form at Farmville, where (it was yet again rumored) there were
more than adequate provisions.
V
Black Thursday is marked by
battles:
The Battle of High Bridge:
When Longstreet’s forces arrived
to take High Bridge they found it already held against them by Union troops who
were trying to burn it. If successful, Lee would have had to take the overland
route (what General Alexander had counseled) which was, ironically enough,
easier and somewhat shorter. In what amounted to the only successful
Confederate engagement of the day, Longstreet managed to take the bridge
intact. The Confederates suffered nominal casualties, although General James
Dearing C.S.A. (the last Confederate General to be killed in the Civil War) was
lost there. The Union suffered nearly 900 men killed, wounded and missing.
The Battle of Rice’s Station:
Having taken High Bridge, several
hours later Longstreet’s men defended it successfully against a Union assault
at Rice’s Station, the furthest point south on Lee routes of march. A second
Union assault to regain the bridge was ended by darkness.
The Battle of Sailor’s Creek:
While small battles and
skirmishes flared all day long along Lee’s routes of march, a large force under
General Richard S. Ewell C.S.A. and General Custis Lee C.S.A. (Robert E. Lee’s
son) fought a major engagement with the Union Sixth Corps at Sailor’s Creek.
The Battle of Sailor’s Creek (as
it was spelled in 1865; it is now usually spelled “Sayler’s” or, alternatively,
“Saylor’s” and sometimes the battle is referred to as “Lockett Farm” or
“Hillsman’s House” or “Hillsman’s Farm” and by several other names) is
universally considered “The Waterloo of the Confederacy.” It is often also
referred to as “The Last Battle of The Civil War” (count them!) or “The Last
Battle of The Army of Northern Virginia” (it wasn’t). But, as Lee himself
advised Jefferson Davis, “A few more
Sailor’s Creeks and it will all be over.”
It would not take that much.
The Battle of Sailor’s Creek
was actually three separate interlocking engagements, one at Lockett’s Farm,
another at Little Sailor’s Creek, and a third at Marshall’s Crossroads. The
battles began when Lee’s columns found themselves blocked by Philip Sheridan’s
forces after Sheridan got ahead of Lee’s columns as per Grant’s orders earlier
that day.
The constant daylong and
nightlong hit-and-run attacks by the Union had finally paid off. Lee’s forces
were moving in a piecemeal fashion, disjointed and out of step with one
another, stopping and going each at their own pace. Huge gaps had opened both between Lee’s columns and inside Lee’s columns. One particularly
heavy skirmish near Holt’s Corners had caused General Ewell to call a halt and
prepare for a set-piece assault, an assault which never came. The halt, though,
put Ewell’s column two hours behind the rest as he began moving forward again.
Ewell had no artillery, and
when he came upon a large Union force under the direct command of Philip
Sheridan at Little Sailor’s Creek, he knew he could not dislodge them. But
before Ewell could maneuver away effectively, the Union troops charged.
“Go get them boys!” Philip
Sheridan shouted. “They’re demoralized as hell!”
The Blue line crashed into the
Gray line, which, against all expectations did not break. The Confederates
actually managed to get off one killing volley which brought down many of the
men involved in that first Union charge. It looked like a Confederate victory
was at hand. The strange wail of the Rebel Yell sounded over the hills of
Virginia for what turned out to be the last time. As the Graybacks charged, the
Union survivors gave way ---
 |
| “I
saw a young fellow of one of my companies jam the muzzle of his musket against
the back of the head of his most intimate friend, clad in a Yankee overcoat,
and blow his brains out.” |
But then a massive number of
Union reinforcements poured onto the field. Having shot their bolt, most of the
Confederates nevertheless continued the attack with empty rifles. In just a few
moments, Sailor’s Creek degenerated into an atavistic tribal contest.
Coming at the Billy Yanks with
nothing but combat knives and bayonets, the Johnny Rebs, those who were not
shot down, slashed and stabbed their way through their enemies. Upending their
rifles, they smashed skulls open with rifle butts; Yankee brains lay in the
dirt. Enraged, the Confederates hacked at the fallen bodies, cut the throats of
the dead and the living, and moved on. Men in gray and butternut who had
discarded their weapons along the trail attacked men in blue with rocks and
with their fists and feet, kicking and punching. Many of the Federal soldiers
did likewise, and the battle became a one-on-one brawl between several thousand
men in the same place. They rolled in the mud, grunting and cursing, gouging
eyes, and crushing throats.
“I
well remember the yell of demonic triumph with which [a] simple country lad
clubbed his musket and whirled savagely upon another victim,”
observed one officer.
A Union commander from a
Massachusetts regiment noted, “One
Berkshire man was stabbed in the chest by a bayonet and pinned to the ground as
it came out near his spine. He reloaded his gun and killed the Confederate who
then fell across him.”
 |
| A path near Marshall's Crossroads |
Friendly fire killed many. The
dazed and often incoherent Confederates were fighting on adrenaline alone, and
any movement within their field of vision evoked a response. A line of
Confederates, seeing a body of men rushing toward them, opened fire
reflexively, killing men coming to their aid.
 |
| The Battle of Sailor's Creek |
Recalled a surviving Confederate:
“I
saw a young fellow of one of my companies jam the muzzle of his musket against
the back of the head of his most intimate friend, clad in a Yankee overcoat,
and blow his brains out.”
Confederate rage reached its
apex when men turned savage began attacking their enemies with their nails and
teeth, biting at cheeks and eyes and ears, tearing great hunks of flesh from
their enemies. This was combat but it had the unhealthy look of cannibalism.
Violence on this scale spread
across the entire battlefield. Lockett’s Farm and Marshall’s Crossroads became
the stages of grisly sights. At Marshall’s Crossroads, Union cavalry rode down
the furious Confederates and with sword and sabre and pistol and rifle did in
the men who survived the trampling of fear-maddened hooves.
 |
| Little Sailor's Creek |
Those who still could, ran.
Lee arrived on the field at
this point. After watching the combat for a few moments, his proud head dropped
into his hand as he looked away. “My God!
Has all the army been dissolved?” he asked himself in a low tone.
“No,” answered one of his
companions, General William Mahone, “Here are men ready to do their duty.”
The battle raged for five
terrible hours.
Starvation began to tell,
however, hunger and weakness, as the day went on. Wearied Confederates suffered
seizures from overexertion and fell and died. Men who had reached the limits of
adrenaline collapsed, shaking and in tears, unable to comprehend what was
happening.
And still the Federals
continued to pour onto the field. There
seemed to be no end to their numbers.
In the end, almost seven
thousand Confederates surrendered, begging for food and water. More than 2,000
lay dead upon the field, so thick in places that a horse could not walk there. The almost 9,000 lost men represented much
more than a third of Lee’s entire remaining army. Among the losses were eight of
Lee’s general officers taken captive: Richard S. Ewell, Joseph B. Kershaw,
Montgomery Corse, Eppa Hunton, Dudley M. DuBose, James P. Smith, Seth Barton,
and Lee’s oldest son, George Washington Custis Lee, called “Mr. Custis” by his
father.
Of the 16,000 Federal soldiers
in the battle the Union lost 1,148 men, killed, wounded, or captured.
The Army of Northern Virginia
was shattered by the Battle of Sailor’s Creek. After the battle, some of Lee’s
men were still like the crusty Virginian P.O.W. who jeeringly told his Union
captor, “Over? Over? This war’s not over, sir. It hasn’t even begun yet, sir.”
And there were those --- thousands --- who refused to take the Loyalty Oath to
the United States after becoming prisoners. Even promises of hot meals,
clothes, and home didn’t sway the firmest of them. Yes, there were still many men
“ready to do their duty” after Sailor’s Creek. But there were many more who
couldn’t even pick up their rifles afterward, men who were too physically weak,
or too mentally troubled to hear another order, men who recoiled in horror at
the blood and bits of brain on their broken rifle stocks, men who burned out utterly
on the horrendous battlefields at Sailor’s Creek becoming zombie-like, other
men who were deeply shamed and terrified at what they did and what they became
for however short a time. Many men in Confederate uniform began asking
themselves just what they were
fighting for. Was life under the United States flag so terrible that they had
to join a fratricidal war to undo their old allegiance? Why, when they had
farms and homes and wives and children and hardworking slaves to help with the
planting, did they go haring off after another man’s dream? Where was that smart-talking
man now? Who was that man to begin with? A rich planter? A politician? A
slave-trader? A cotton broker? What, in
God’s good name, do such men have to do with me? they ask. What about the endless roll call of the
dead? Where will it all end? Marse
Robert is an honorable man, for sure, and they will follow him into the jaws of
hell itself --- in fact they already have, time and again --- but is The Cause
really worth what they have seen, what they cannot ever truly forget?
And there is still no food.
After darkness fell on the
battlefields of Sailor’s Creek furtive figures began scouring the ground,
searching in the blackness. They knelt, cutting strips of bleeding meat from
the carcasses of the dead horses that littered the field. Some sat down and
chewed and swallowed the meat raw, while others carried it back to the
temporary encampment of the Confederate army. Other men hacked at the legs of
the animals; their harvest would be pot-boiled to make a poor kind of hoof soup
that the weakest men could ingest. The men of the Army of Northern Virginia
ate, however poorly, for the first time in days. If anyone made use of the hundreds
of human bodies that lay strewn across the ground, no one later remembered it.
 |
| A modern painting of Lee, representing him circa 1865. Four years of war had aged him immensely |
Robert E. Lee lay restless on
his camp bed, alone, in a smallish tent quickly erected to keep him dry from
the constantly passing showers that had begun with dusk. These are light Spring
rains heralding new life, but on this night Lee was preoccupied with death.
What he had seen at Sailor’s Creek haunted the troubled dreams he suffered
during his brief snatches of sleep. He had seen his invincible Army of Northern
Virginia made all too mortal. He had taxed his men and they had paid --- too
much. And tonight, his beloved Mr. Custis was a prisoner of the Yankees. Logic
told him Mr. Custis would be safe. As a father his instincts were to fear.
Blearily he rose, and stepped
into the night. The stars appeared and vanished behind the white fleece of the
clouds as they moved against the India ink palette of the sky. Sitting himself
down cautiously, Lee sighed deeply. And by the light of a lantern set on a camp
stool, Robert E. Lee contemplated what he had once believed to be unthinkable.
 |
| General George Custer U.S.A. accepting the struck Confederate colors at Appomattox Court House |
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