From Petersburg to Appomattox and Home.

"There hangs a saber, and there a rein,
With a rusty buckle and a green curb chain;
A pair of spurs on the old grey wall,
And a moldy saddle—well, that is all."

April 2, 1865, Lee was compelled to evacuate Richmond, abandon his whole battle line, and fall back toward the mountains. He hoped to be able to join his forces with those of Gen. Jos. E. Johnston, who was advancing northward through North Carolina, but his losses were so heavy and his army almost starved, the road deep with mud from excessive rains, making it impossible for his gaunt, lean horses to draw his artillery and wagons. He saw further resistance was useless, so on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered what was left of his once formidable army. The number was a little less than 8000 men. I have seen it stated that Lee had about 35,000 men,[6] when, on April 2, he ordered the evacuation of his line of intrenchments. Some of his cavalry, being on the outskirts, were not included in the surrender. Besides this, during the seven days' retreat, Grant's forces were pressing Lee's army on all sides, killing, wounding and capturing some of his men every hour; this accounts for the small number that Gen. Lee personally surrendered. The first thing that was done after the surrender was an application from Gen. Lee to Grant for food for his horses and men, which was promptly supplied. Of course, there is much that is interesting in connection with the surrender that need not be recorded here. Grant's treatment of Lee and his soldiers won for him praise all over the South.

But to go back. As I have said, I was on the march from home toward the army, and had reached a point not far from Charlottesville. There were about a dozen of us, all belonging to my regiment. About noon we saw advancing toward us a small body of cavalry. At first we took them for the enemy and approached them cautiously, they using the same precaution. When we discovered that we were fellow-Confeds we passed with a salute. One of them called to us and said, "Boys, you may as well go home; Lee has surrendered his army." We paid no attention to it, but moved on. A mile farther we met another squad and asked what was the news from the army. We got this reply: "As we passed through Charlottesville we came near being mobbed for telling the news from the army. You had better go on and find out for yourselves." Soon after this we met a colonel leading about 40 cavalrymen. By this time we began to feel that something was wrong. The colonel halted his men and frankly told us that it was a fact that Lee had surrendered his army. He stated that some of the cavalry had escaped and they were making their way toward their homes, and advised us to do the same. The colonel and his men moved on, and we halted for an hour in the road discussing the situation and trying to determine what to do. We were not prepared to act upon the evidence that we had had regarding the surrender, but were willing to admit that it might be true. One fellow from Company F, riding a gray horse, rose in his stirrups, and lifting his clinched hand high above his head, said, "If Gen. Lee has had to surrender his army, there is not a just God in Heaven."

Finally we decided to cross the mountains into the Virginia Valley and tarry in the vicinity of Staunton and await further tidings. I made a bee-line for my brother Gerard's. The others scattered here and there. After remaining a few days at my brother's I started, in company with six or eight others, who were from the lower end of the valley, principally Clark county, for my home in Loudoun, with no definite idea as to what I should do before I got there. In fact, the others were in the same frame of mind.

We had heard and read the proclamation that all Confederate soldiers who would surrender their arms and take the oath of allegiance to the U.S. Government (except a certain grade of officers) would be allowed to go to their homes and not be molested, but we had not yet come to the point of surrendering.

We moved on down the valley pike, noting as we went the terrible havoc the war had made, commenting on what we called Jackson's mileposts, viz. the skeletons of horses that had fallen by the way. They were, however, too thick to be called mileposts, but that is what we called them.

A little below Woodstock, I think it was, we saw on a hill, standing in the middle of the road facing us, two sentinels on horseback. They were Yankee pickets. I think there were eight of us. We halted. Someone said, "Well, boys, what are we going to do? We can't pass these pickets. Shall we surrender?" I guess we stood there for an hour. We were all mounted. Finally a young fellow from Clark county said, "I'm going up and surrender." Another said, "I go with you." And the two, taking something in their hands that would pass for a flag of truce (white handkerchiefs had become obsolete), went forward and were allowed to pass. They went to headquarters and surrendered. Then one by one the little band melted away, leaving two, and I was one of them. We were not ready to surrender. We went back out of sight, and made a flank movement to get into the foothills of the Massanutten mountains, and by keeping under cover of the timber, managed to get within 12 miles of my home without being molested.

As we stood on the edge of the woods we saw the Yankee cavalry moving up and down the turnpike running from Paris to Middleburg. It looked as if there was nothing else to do but surrender. At this point my comrade deserted me and went forward and surrendered. I watched my opportunity, slipping across the pike unobserved, and following the Blue Ridge mountains until nearly opposite my home, took a straight line across the fields and reached home safely. As I carried my full complement of arms I created no little surprise and consternation.

Union soldiers were constantly passing along the road which ran close by my home, some of them stopping for water or for information, but I could not fully make up my mind to surrender. My brother Richard of Mosby's command was of the same mind. Mosby and all his men had surrendered, and the family pleaded with us to do the same, but we were obstinate. This, however, was nothing to our credit. When one is whipped he should be man enough to acknowledge it and brave enough to surrender, unless the conqueror be a cannibal.

Thus ended my career as a soldier. As I look back over those four eventful years, after a lapse of over 40 years, it all seems a dream. In time of peace it is a struggle for 75 per cent. of us to get a fair living out of the earth, but the people down South managed to live, and were in a degree comfortable and contented, and managed to get food enough to preserve their bodies and keep them strong and healthy. Flour was $500 a barrel. I paid $125 in Richmond for a hat that I could now buy for $1. This common red-striped candy, $25 per pound. Samuel Rector had gone from Loudoun county to Richmond in 1864 on some business. When ready to go home he thought it would be nice and the proper thing to do to take the family some little remembrances. He went into a confectionery store and asked to see some candies. The jars were taken down and he tasted first one then another. Selecting one and asking the price, he was told that it was $25 per pound. It was of the long, red-striped variety just mentioned, worth in times of peace about 10 cents per pound. He had a pound of it wrapped up, and handed the proprietor a $50 Confederate note. Twenty dollars was handed back in change. Mr. Rector said, "I understood you to say the price was $25." "That is true," said the affable confectioner, "but you ate $5 worth." The joke was well worth $5 to Mr. Rector, and he got more pleasure out of it than he did out of the pound of candy.

There were four commodities with which the South was plentifully supplied, viz., tobacco, cotton, money and horses. We raised the two former in the territory not harassed by marching armies. The third was supplied by printing presses, and the horses were captured from our enemy. Of course, bridles, saddles, harness and wagons came with the horses.

I have omitted a great many little entertaining incidents partly for the sake of brevity and partly because they escaped my memory at the time they should have been narrated. One that I just now recall, and one which the children always used to make me tell whenever war stories were called for, regardless of how often it had been repeated, I will insert here:

One cold, windy night in the winter of '62 I was on picket on the turnpike between Upperville and Middleburg. Pickets in the Confederate army always stood alone, as two or more would likely be absorbed in conversation and forget their duty. We were also admonished not to dismount. I was a little reckless that night, and dismounting stood leaning against my horse to break the bleak wind and absorb as much heat from his body as possible. He became restless, and I noticed that he was looking intently down the pike and throwing his head up and down as horses will do when excited. I listened, but could hear no sound, and told my steed to keep still, but his keen eyes or ears saw or heard something that worried him, and he kept his ears pointed down in the direction from which the enemy would probably come if they came at all. I said to myself, "You had better mount your horse." But I delayed. I then recalled the fact that news had reached the camp that day that a body of cavalry had left the vicinity of Washington and was moving northeast, and we were admonished to keep a sharp lookout. Then I concluded to mount, but before I could do so I realized that it was too late.

I was standing close by one of those old Virginia stone fences, about five feet high, and in the darkness I saw an object creeping up on the other side of the fence, close to it, and only a few feet from where I stood. I immediately concluded that the object was a man, and that he was from the enemy and was bent on capturing or killing the picket, so as to surprise our camp. The most accessible weapon I had was my sabre. I drew it and made a cut at what I conceived to be the man's head. As I did so, the object disappeared behind the fence, and in its place appeared what proved to be a black cat's tail, which in a flash followed the cat. Although it was quite dark, the little black object appearing between me and the sky was plainly visible. This incident taught me a lesson that I never forgot. I mounted my horse, and never was known afterward to dismount when on the picket line. I believe this was the greatest fright I encountered during my whole four years' war experience.

One more little incident, and a short tribute to the remarkable fidelity of the colored people of the South to the Southern cause and the families of their owners, and I shall have finished.

There was in my company a soldier by the name of Owens—Mason Owens. He was a splendid fellow, quiet in his demeanor, brave in battle, always in his place, whether that place was in the front or rear rank, but never liked to do anything that called for disguise or deception, such as acting as a spy or disguised as a Union soldier, in order to get into the enemy's camp, although he recognized that it was necessary to have men for work of this kind. Owens was very fond of me; in fact, I had no more faithful friend in the army. He was continually with me, doing me favors, sharing with me any delicacy that came into his possession, keeping close by me in battle. Sometimes when the regiment would be ordered to dismount for the purpose of engaging the foe on foot (and he was No. 4, making it his duty to remain mounted and take care of Nos. 1, 2, and 3 horses), he would quickly dismount and take my place in the ranks and leave me the care of the horses (a place few objected to having), and many like favors. One afternoon, near night, our captain said that he had a requisition for six picked men to do some hazardous nightwork within the enemy's lines, just the kind of duty that Owens detested. But fate was against him, and he and five others were selected. He sullenly complied, and as he rode out of the ranks with his face flushed and his head bowed, I heard him say, "I don't like this." Someone said, "Owens, I'll take your place." He turned and gave him a look that must have chilled the fellow's blood, and said, "Didn't you hear Capt. Gibson call me?"

I saw the six ride off; Owens didn't even say good-bye to me. That night one of Lee's noted scouts led these men, with others taken from other commands, into the enemy's camp, and Owens never returned. He was shot, and fell from his horse, dying either from cold or the wound. At intervals during the night a citizen living near where he fell heard someone calling, but was afraid to go out. The next morning he found his dead body and buried it. I grieved very much over his death, occuring as it did.

Now I want to say that I shall ever have a tender spot in my breast for the colored people, owing to what I know of the race, judged from my association with them from early childhood up to and including the years of the Civil War, and, indeed, some years after.

My home in Loudoun county, on the border line between the North and South, gave me an unusual opportunity of judging how far the negro could be trusted in caring for and protecting the homes of the men who were in the Southern armies. Scattered all through the South, and especially in the border States, there were white men who were not in sympathy with the South, and some of them acted as spies and guides for the Northern troops as they marched and counter-marched through the land. But I never knew of a negro being guilty of like conduct. They not only watched over and protected the women and children in their homes, but were equally as faithful and careful to protect the Southern soldier from capture when he returned home to see his loved ones.

No soldier in Loudoun or Fauquier counties ever feared that his or his neighbor's servants would betray him to the enemy. The negro always said, in speaking of the Southern soldiers, "our soldiers," although he well knew that the success of the North meant his freedom, while the success of the South meant the continuation of slavery.

Another remarkable thing. No one ever heard of a negro slave, or, so far as I know, a free negro of the South, offering an insult or an indignity to a white woman. They were frequently commissioned to escort the daughters of the family to church or to school, or on any expedition taking them from home. Sometimes the distance was long and across fields and through lonely woods, but the kinky-headed, pigeon-heeled colored man always delivered his charge safely, and would have died in his footsteps to do it if the occasion required. Freedom, education, or both, or something else, has developed in the negro a trait that no one ever dreamed he possessed until after the close of the Civil War. Hence, I have a great respect for the race. Not, however, on account of this lately-developed trait, but for those other traits that were so much in evidence during the time that tried men's souls.

The following is the name of the several divisions of the army in which I served, and the names of the chief of each division from the captain of my company to the commander-in-chief of the army:

Company.—I was in Company A, first commanded by Col. Richard H. Dulaney, who served a few months and was promoted. He was succeeded by Bruce Gibson of Fauquier county, Virginia, who served during the entire war, and was once knocked from his horse by the concussion of a shell, but sustained no other injuries. Was a prisoner from June, 1864, to the end of the war.

Regiment.—Sixth Virginia Cavalry, commanded first by ex-Governor Flournoy, who served one year, retired on account of age, was succeeded by his son, who was killed at Cold Harbor in June, 1864, and was succeeded by Richards from Clark county, Virginia. The regiment was composed of ten companies, and came from the following counties: Loudoun, Fauquier, Clark and Prince William.

Brigade.—First; Robinson, and then Gen. Wm. E. Jones, who was killed; then Gen. Lomax, who, I believe, is still living near Warrenton, Fauquier county, Virginia.

Division.—Gen. Fitzhugh Lee, nephew of Gen. Robert E. Lee. He survived the war, and died a few months ago.

Corps.—Commanded by Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, who was killed at Yellow Tavern in 1864. He was succeeded by Gen. Wade Hampton of South Carolina, who survived the war and died a few years ago.

Army.—Northern Virginia; commanded first by Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, who was succeeded by Joseph E. Johnston, who was succeeded by Gen. Robert E. Lee, who held the position until the close of the war. Lee was also made commander-in-chief of all the Confederate armies.

[6] General Longstreet says the total number surrendered to Grant was 28,356. Many of these came in voluntarily and surrendered. Lee had with him 1500 prisoners, taken since leaving Petersburg. These were the first to be delivered to the Union army. The first generous act Grant did after the surrender was to furnish Lee's hungry soldiers and horses with food. Grant's army must have numbered not far from 150,000.