The Man Who Saved the Union (56 page)

Clouds of more than disappointment soon covered the city. The evacuation order provoked panic. Residents recalling the recent fate of Columbia carted their furniture and other belongings through the streets, hoping to save at least these from the fires they feared were coming. The impedimenta clogged the thoroughfares, raising the fever level. Looters trailed the evacuees, perhaps consoling their consciences that they were simply taking what the owners had left behind. Soon they anticipated the flight, stealing whatever they could lay hands on. Food-stores were irresistibly tempting to a hungry populace; breaking into warehouses, they discovered that much of the shortage they suffered had been contrived. “The most revolting revelation was the amount of provisions, shoes and clothing which had been accumulated by the speculators who hovered like vultures over the scene of death and desolation,” Sallie Pickett recalled. The crowds grew angry and many persons got drunk on liberated liquor. Confederate general
Richard Ewell, ordered by Lee to burn the cotton and tobacco in government custody, took care to keep his authorized fires from spreading; he later asserted that the fires that destroyed the city were set by the mob. However they started, the flames quickly spread and magnified the chaos. “Throughout the night the fire raged,” Sallie Pickett wrote. “The sea of darkness rolled over the town; the crowds of men, women and children went about the streets laden with what plunder they could rescue from the flames. The drunken rabble shattered the plate-glass windows of the stores and wrecked everything upon which they could seize. The populace had become a frenzied mob, and the kingdom of Satan seemed to have been transferred to the streets of Richmond.”

L
ee looked back on the smoking ruins the next day. “
I have got my army safely out of its breastworks,” he remarked from the road. He had withdrawn from the Richmond defenses and begun his flight. “In order to follow me, the enemy must abandon his lines and can derive no further benefit from his railroads on the James River.”

But Grant did not intend to follow Lee; he intended to cut him off.
“
The first object of the present movement will be to intercept Lee’s army,” Grant told Sheridan on the morning of April 3. “Make your movements according to this program.” To
Edward Ord, now heading the
Army of the James, he wrote, “
Efforts will be made to intercept the enemy, who are evidently pushing toward Danville. Push southwest with your command.”

Grant finally had Lee where he wanted him: out from behind his defenses and in the open. Lee looked weaker and more vulnerable than ever. “
Sheridan, who was up with him last night, reports all that is left—horse, foot, and dragoons—at 20,000, much demoralized,” Grant wrote Sherman on April 5. “We hope to reduce this number fully one-half. I will push on to Burkeville, and if a stand is made at Danville will in a very few days go there.” Sherman should join the hunt. “If you can possibly do so, push on from where you are and let us see if we cannot finish the job with Lee and Johnston’s armies.” Sherman should forget entirely about towns or other points of geography. “Rebel armies are now the only strategic points to strike at.” The next day Grant reiterated: “
We have Lee’s army pressed hard, his men scattering and going to their homes by the thousands. He is endeavoring to reach Danville, where
Davis and his cabinet have gone. I shall press the pursuit to the end. Push Johnston at the same time, and let us finish up this job all at once.”

Grant knew he was on the verge of victory. He praised the swift march—twenty-eight miles in a day—of two of his divisions. “
These troops were sent out to Farmville this afternoon and I am in hopes will head the enemy and enable us to totally break up the
Army of Northern Virginia,” he reported to City Point for relay to Washington. “The troops are all pushing now though it is after night and they have had no rest for more than one week. The finest spirit prevails among the men, and I believe that in three days Lee will not have an army of 5,000 men to take out of Virginia, and no train or supplies.”

Lee felt Grant’s grip tightening. He realized he couldn’t win the war but thought he might prolong it. If he could feed his men he might reach Johnston’s army. Together they could threaten to extend the war longer than Northern opinion could stand. Lincoln and Grant might have to negotiate yet.

Lee’s army reached Amelia Court House, thirty miles southwest of Richmond, where he hoped to find supplies. But the supplies weren’t there, and he was compelled to turn his men out to forage across the neighborhood. “
Nearly twenty-four hours were lost in endeavoring to
collect in the country subsistence for men and horses,” he recounted afterward. “This delay was fatal, and could not be retrieved.” The weary, hungry troops marched on. At Jetersville, on the
Richmond & Danville Railroad, they encountered Sheridan’s cavalry and learned that the Union infantry was close behind. “This deprived us of the use of the railroad,” Lee said, “and rendered it impracticable to procure from Danville the supplies ordered to meet us at points of our march.” The countryside offered nothing, having been stripped bare. Lee had no choice but to redirect his march toward Farmville, where he hoped to find provisions shipped from Lynchburg.

The march deteriorated by the mile. Sheridan’s cavalry sliced across the Confederate column, disrupting its progress. Ord’s infantry attacked and took many prisoners. Lee kept the men marching through the night of April 6 and reached Farmville on the morning of the 7th. But many of the troops went hungry again, as some of the supply trains had pulled out lest they be captured by the approaching Sheridan.

The march continued with greater difficulty than ever. “The roads were wretched and the progress slow,” Lee recalled. Most of the men no longer thought of fighting; they simply wanted to eat. Lee had nothing to give them.

G
rant offered
Lee a chance to surrender. “
The result of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance,” he wrote Lee on April 7. “I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.”

Lee was interested. He denied that his situation was hopeless but said he wanted to hear more. “
I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood,” he wrote Grant, “and, therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer.”

Grant sought to make things simple. “
There is but one condition I would insist upon, namely that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms again against the Government of the United States, until properly exchanged,” he said. “I will meet or will designate officers to meet any officers you name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the
terms upon which the surrender of the
Army of Northern Virginia will be received.”

Lee wasn’t ready. “
I did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of your proposition,” he wrote to Grant on April 8. “To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the surrender of this army, but as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of all, I desired to know whether your proposals would lead to that end. I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia.” He
could
meet for other purposes, though. “As far as your proposal may affect the Confederate States forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 a.m. tomorrow, on the old stage road to Richmond, between the picket lines of the two armies.”

T
hat same day Sheridan’s cavalry galloped toward Appomattox Station, a rail depot on the line from Lynchburg. A Union scout met them with news that four trains loaded with supplies for Lee’s army were poised at the station. Sheridan pressed harder than ever. The trains meant life for Lee’s army if they got through, death if they didn’t. George
Custer headed the Union column that reached Appomattox Station first. He sent two regiments around to the west to break the track behind the trains so they couldn’t return to Lynchburg. With the rest of his force Custer rode into the depot, arriving almost simultaneously with Lee’s advance guard. Custer attacked the Confederates, dealing them a sharp blow that resulted in the seizure of two dozen artillery pieces and a wagon column, besides securing the supply trains and compelling the retreat of the rebels back up the road toward Appomattox Court House, several miles away.

Sheridan ordered his skirmishers to follow the Confederates and wear them down further. He got little rest himself. “
The captured trains had been taken charge of by locomotive engineers, soldiers of the command who delighted evidently to get back at their old calling,” he remembered. “They amused themselves by running the trains to and fro, creating much confusion and keeping up such an unearthly screeching with the whistles that I was on the point of ordering the cars burned.”

Nor did he sleep that night. His cavalry couldn’t bear the weight of opposing Lee’s whole army; the horse soldiers required support. “
The necessity of getting Ord’s column up was so obvious now that staff officer
after staff officer was sent to him and to General Grant requesting that the infantry be pushed on, for if it could get to the front, all knew that the rebellion would be ended on the morrow,” Sheridan said.

The night passed with nothing from Ord or Grant. Sheridan, Custer and the other officers alternately cheered the imminent end of the war and worried that Lee would arrive before Ord and frustrate them again.

Finally, just at dawn on April 9, Ord appeared. His troops had marched all night and were bone-tired. Yet they were as determined to end the war as Sheridan’s men were, and they wouldn’t stop till they had cornered Lee conclusively.

They arrived at the decisive moment. Lee made a final, desperate effort to break through Sheridan’s cavalry line. The attack was beginning just as Ord’s men reached the scene. Sheridan withdrew the cavalry to allow passage for Ord’s infantry. The Confederates initially mistook the maneuver for a Federal retreat and pushed with rising hopes to the crest of a hill commanding the field. From that vantage, however, they could see Ord’s columns pouring onto the battlefield, and their spirit broke. They reflexively halted and then fell back toward Appomattox Court House.

Sheridan prepared to pursue. Custer, eager as always, and
Wesley Merritt, Sheridan’s second in command, were about to charge when Sheridan heard that Lee had raised the white flag. Sheridan sent a courier to Ord and galloped after Custer and Merritt himself. On the way he came under fire from Confederates who hadn’t got the news. He began to think that the report was wrong or Lee was engaged in deception. When one of Lee’s officers, John Gordon, belatedly arrived, Sheridan said, “General, your men fired on me as I was coming over here, and undoubtedly they are treating Merritt and Custer the same way. We might as well let them fight it out.” Gordon replied, “There must be some mistake.” Sheridan suggested that Gordon send a staff officer to tell his men to stop firing. Gordon responded, “I have no staff officer to send.”

Sheridan offered one of his own, Lieutenant
Vanderbilt Allen. Gordon wrote orders to Confederate general
Martin Gary, who commanded a shrunken brigade of South Carolinians opposite Merritt. Gary ignored Allen’s truce flag and took the lieutenant prisoner. “I do not care for white flags,” Gary said. “South Carolinians never surrender.” Merritt watched from a distance and decided he’d seen enough. He launched an attack. “This in short order put an end to General Gary’s last-ditch absurdity,” Sheridan recalled.

Gordon told Sheridan that Gary was acting without orders. General Lee, he said, sincerely desired a truce pending talks with General Grant. Sheridan remained skeptical. He knew that Grant and Lee had been communicating but had heard nothing of talks. He told Gordon that the
Confederate attempt to break through his lines that very morning belied any notion of talks. “I will entertain no terms except that General Lee shall surrender to General Grant on his arrival here,” he said. “If these terms are not accepted, we will renew hostilities.”

Gordon vouched for his commander. “General Lee’s army is exhausted,” he said. “There is no doubt of his surrender to General Grant.”

Ord rode up at this point. Sheridan explained the situation. Gordon asked for time to provide proof of Lee’s bona fides. Sheridan and Ord reluctantly agreed. Gordon galloped away. He returned half an hour later, accompanied by
James Longstreet, who carried a note from Lee to Grant, agreeing to surrender. Sheridan and Ord extended the truce until they could locate Grant.

“O
n the 8th I had followed the Army of the Potomac in rear of
Lee,” Grant remembered. “I was suffering very severely with a sick headache, and stopped at a farmhouse on the road some distance in rear of the main body of the army.” He spent a miserable night with hot water on his feet and hot mustard on his wrists and neck. A courier brought Lee’s answer to his second letter, but its evasions left him unsatisfied and still suffering.

He moved out before dawn on the 9th, intending to join Sheridan beyond Appomattox Court House. But to get there he had to ride around Lee’s army, and so he left the road and circled south. Sheridan’s message about Lee’s agreement to surrender consequently missed him. Hearing nothing, Sheridan and Ord grew nervous about the ceasefire.

Lee sent one of his own officers to look for Grant and deliver a new message. “
I received your note of this morning on the picket line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the
surrender of this army,” Lee’s message said. He was disappointed that Grant had not been there. But he still wanted to meet. “I now ask an interview in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday for that purpose.”