Chapter XXXIV Conclusion
April, 1865.
Day was breaking on the 12th of April, when General Grant, accompanied by his staff, alighted from the cars at City Point, after a tedious night ride from Burkesville. He walked slowly up the steep bank to his head-quarters, not with the air of a conqueror, but as if sleep and rest would be far more acceptable than the congratulations of a noisy crowd. Four years had passed since he left his quiet home in Illinois, a humble citizen, unknown beyond his village borders; but now his name was inseparably connected with a great moral convulsion, world-wide in its influence, enduring as time in its results. The mighty conflict of ideas had swept round the globe like a tidal wave of the ocean. Industry had been quickened in every land, and new channels of trade opened among the nations. Wherever human language was spoken, men talked of the war between Slavery and Freedom, and aspirations for good were awakened in the hearts of toiling millions in Europe, on the burning sands of Africa, and in the jungles of Hindostan, to whom life was bare existence and the future ever hopeless.
The four years of fighting were over; the Rebellion was subdued. On the first of April Lee had a large army, but suddenly he had been overwhelmed. That which seemed so formidable had disappeared like a bubble in the sunshine. Though the Rebels saw that the Confederacy was threatened as it had not been at any other period of the war, there were few, if any, who, up to the latest hour, dreamed that there could be such an overturning of affairs. That Lee had held his ground so long was a warranty that he could successfully resist all Grant’s efforts to take Richmond. The Confederate Congress met daily in the capital, passed resolutions, enacted laws, and debated questions of state, as if the Confederacy had a place among the nations, with centuries of prosperity and glory in prospect. But their performance came to an unexpected end. The last act of the tragedy was given on the 14th,—the assassination of the President.
What drama surpasses it in interest? What period of the world’s history is more replete with great events affecting the welfare of the human race? In 1861, when the curtain rose, the world beheld a nation, peaceful, happy, prosperous. Then came the spectacle,—the procession of seceding States, with bugles sounding, colors flying, the bombardment of Sumter; the uprising of the people of the North, the drum-beat heard in every village, flags floating from all the steeples, streamers and banners from all the house-tops, great battles, defeat, and victory; a ploughman and splitter of rails the liberator of the enslaved, their enlistment as soldiers of the Republic; the patriotism of the people; woman’s work of love and mercy; the ghastly scenes in Southern prisons, the conflagration of cities set on fire by the Rebels, the breaking up of the Confederacy, the assassination, the capture of the Rebel chief, the return of the victorious armies, the last grand military pageant at Washington, and then the retirement of the soldiers to peaceful life! Sublime the picture!
The conflict commenced as a rebellion, but ended in revolution. Slavery has disappeared. Civil liberty is stronger than in 1861. Four millions of freedmen are candidates for citizenship, who at the beginning of the Rebellion had no rights under the flag of the Union.
“Slaves rise up men; the olive waves,
With roots deep set in battle graves.”
The Rebellion was an attempt to suppress Truth and Justice by tyranny. The effort might have been successful in earlier ages, but not in the nineteenth century, and never will the attempt be repeated on American soil, for the tendency of mind is towards a clearer perception of the rights of man. America uttered her protest against despotic power in 1776. “It was an experiment,” said the aristocracies of Europe. The “republican bubble has burst,” said Earl Russell in 1861; but the Republic lives, and the false and ignoble distinctions in the society of the Old World, which slavery attempted to establish in the New, have been reversed. America teaches this truth to the wondering nations,—that the strongest government rests, not on the few, not on property, never on injustice, but on the people, on diffused wealth and enlightened mind, on obligation to man and God.
Kings will yet lay aside their sceptres, and subjects will become sovereigns, because the people of America, by example, have shown the world that civil and religious liberty for all, as well as for the few, is of more value than human life.
How lavish the expenditure of blood! How generous the outpouring of the wine of life by the heroic dead!
“Song of peace, nor battle’s roar,
Ne’er shall break their slumbers more;
Death shall keep his solemn trust,
‘Earth to earth, and dust to dust.’”
Dead, yet living. Their patriotism, sacrifice, endurance, patience, faith, and hope can never die. Loved and lamented, but immortal. Pæans for the living, dirges for the dead. Their work is done, not for an hour, a day, a year, but for all time; not for fame or ambition, but for the poor, the degraded, the oppressed of all lands, for civilization and Christianity, for the welfare of the human race through Time and Eternity!
Footnotes1
McDowell’s Order.
2 See “Days and Nights on the Battle-Field,” p. 58.
3 Our God is a strong fortress.
4 “North America,” by Anthony Trollope, Vol. II. p. 86.
5 North American Review, January, 1866, p. 189.
6 The accompanying illustration is an accurate representation drawn by Mr. Wand, who witnessed the battle. The battery in the foreground is north of the house of Mr. Roulet, near the centre of Sumner’s line. French’s and Richardson’s divisions are seen in the middle of the picture, and the Rebels under D. H. Hill and Longstreet beyond.
7 Want of space compels me to give only a sketch of the battle; but a full, circumstantial, and detailed account of the positions and movements of the two armies may be found in “Following the Flag,” published by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields of Boston.
8 Pollard’s Second Year of the War, p. 152.
9 Letter to Boston Journal, December 9, 1862.
10 Boker’s “Crossing at Fredericksburg.”
11 Richmond Examiner, December 15, 1862.
12 Lieutenant-Colonel Fizer’s Report.
13 Jackson’s Report.
14 Lee’s Report.
15 General Meade’s Testimony, Conduct of the War, Part I. p. 696.
16 See map accompanying General Franklin’s reply to Report of Committee on Conduct of the War.
17 Testimony, Conduct of the War, Part I. p. 715.
18 Testimony of Meade and other officers, Conduct of the War.
19 General Howard’s Address at Washington.
20 Letter to Richmond Examiner.
21 Richmond Examiner, May 1st 1863.
22 Howard’s Report.
23 General Sickles’s statement.
24 Howard’s Report.
25 Howard’s Report.
26 General Doles’s Report, p. 63.
27 Colston’s Report, p. 43.
28 Life of Stonewall Jackson, by Daniels, of Richmond, p. 254.
29 Lee’s Report.
30 Stuart’s Report.
31 “From the Potomac to the Rapidan,” by Quint.
32 Lee’s Report.
33 Wilcox’s Report, p. 98.
34 Wilcox’s Report.
35 Barksdale’s Report.
36 Brooks’s Report.
37 Barksdale’s Report.
38 General Wilcox’s Report.
39 Lee’s Report, p. 12.
40 Howard’s Report, p. 9.
41 Kilpatrick and Our Cavalry, p. 49.
42 Kilpatrick and our Cavalry, p. 50.
43 Kilpatrick’s Report.
44 Atlantic Monthly, April, 1863.
45 Starry regions.
46 Lieutenant Freemantle.—Blackwood’s Magazine, September, 1863.
47 The accompanying plan of the battle-field accurately represents the general positions of the troops engaged. On the right of the Union line is the Twelfth Corps; then two divisions of the First; then the Eleventh in and around The cemetery; then Robinson’s division of the First; then the Second and the Fifth on the left, occupying Weed’s Hill. The Third Corps is in the position it occupied at the beginning of the battle on the afternoon of the second day. It was forced back to Trostle’s house. The Sixth Corps is in the position it occupied at sunset on the second day. On the third day it was in line along Weed’s Hill. When Slocum went over from the right to aid in repulsing Longstreet on the second day, he passed near the two houses standing on the Taneytown road. Meade’s quarters were in the house over which a flag is flying.
Longstreet is in the position which he occupied at three o’clock on the afternoon of the second day, and to which he retired after failing to push Sickles beyond Trostle’s.
Pickett commanded a division and not a corps. But as his division took the lead in the last attack, on the third day, and as his repulse was seemingly the turning-point of the Rebellion, especial mention has been made of the part taken by the troops under his command. Hill supported him. A portion of Hill’s troops were with Longstreet in the attack of the second day.
Ewell is in the position he occupied at dark on the second day, while two of Slocum’s divisions were aiding the left of Meade’s line.
Lee’s head-quarters were near Smucker’s house.
The fight on the first day began on Willoughby’s Run. The Union lines on that day extended from the Middletown road along the semicircle occupied by the Rebel cannon in the diagram, to the railroad east of Blocher’s. The map is reduced from an accurate survey.
The best plan of this battle extant is the isometrical picture of Gettysburg, by Colonel J. B. Batchelder, who has devoted many months to the study of the field. It will ever be standard authority for the historian.
48 Freemantle.
49 Blackwood’s Magazine, September, 1863.
50 Blackwood’s Magazine, September, 1864.—Freemantle.
51 General Howard’s Report.
52 Blackwood’s Magazine, September, 1863.—Lieutenant-Colonel Freemantle.
53 Address before Alumni of Williams College, 1865. Charles Demond.
54 Ibid.
55 Rev. Mr. Auley, meeting Christian Association, Chicago.
56 Lee’s Report.
57 Lee’s Report.
58 McClellan’s Report, p. 46.
59 Magruder’s Report.
60 McClellan’s Report, p. 238.
61 McClellan’s Report.
62 Pollard, First Year, p. 329.
63 Magruder’s Report, p. 191.
64 Grant’s Official Report.
65 Grant’s Report.
66 Grant’s Report.
67 See “My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field”; also testimony of Captain Ricketts and Captain Griffin, in Report of Committee on Conduct of the War.
68 Attack on Petersburg, Report of Committee on Conduct of the War, p. 4.
69 Ibid., p. 5.
70 Report of Committee.
71 Richmond Enquirer, July 19, 1864.
72 Augusta Constitutionalist, November 22, 1864.
73 News, November 22, 1864.
74 Sherman’s Report.
75 Report of the United States Sanitary Commission.
76 See the Watchman, New York.
77 Miss Barton’s Report.
78 Sherman’s Report.
79 Proceedings of South Carolina Legislature.
80 Speech of Senator Chestnut.
81 Southern Presbyterian Review, January, 1861.
82 Charleston Mercury, November 3, 1860.
83 Mercury, November 12, 1860.
84 Mercury, November 9, 1860.
85 Charleston Mercury, November 17, 1860.
86 Charleston Mercury, November 9, 1860.
87 Courier, December 29, 1860.
88 Mercury, December 29, 1860.
89 Floyd’s Letter to Buchanan.
90 Speech of Governor Pickens.
91 James Redpath.
92 Report of Treasurer and Finance, South Carolina, 1862.
93 Report of James Chestnut, Chief Military Department, South Carolina, January 1, 1862, p. 47.
94 Ibid., p. 24.
95 Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, Vol. II. p. 446.
96 Sheridan’s Report.
97 A Rebel Courier’s Experience.
98 Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, Vol. I. p. 24.
99 Benjamin’s letter to Mason, October 28, 1862.
100 Benjamin’s letter to Mr. De Leon, December 13, 1862.
101 Benjamin’s Letter, October 24, 1862.
102 Earl Russell’s letter to Mr. Adams, Diplo. Cor. 1863, Part I. p. 129.
103 Benjamin to Slidell, October 17, 1862.
104 Times, March 19, 1863.
105 Times, July 13, 1849.
106 Times, March 23, 1863.
107 Lee’s Last Campaign, p. 26.
108 Rebel Courier’s Experience.
109 Rebel Courier’s Experience.
110 Rebel Courier’s Experience.