ne ere

 

 

 

536 NortH Carona Troops, 186165.

that day, but drove the enemy back some distance, and only
withdrew after nightfall when all our troops were ordered to
retire, and then commenced that terrible retreat to Appomat-
tox Court House. The incidents of that memorable retreat
need not be recorded here, but the Thirty-second Regiment,
with all of Grimes’ Division, did its full duty. Always at
the post of danger, protecting the rear of Lee’s retreating
army, they well sustained to the last their “great courage and
steadiness,” which General Daniel had noted at Gettysburg.
Now stubbornly resisting the advance of superior numbers
flushed with victory, now turning like a wounded lion upon
its pursuers and charging desperately and putting to flight
a too confident foe, and now toiling along over muddy roads,
famished with hunger, exhausted with constant marching
day and night, almost stupefied with the want of sleep, those
men proved themselves to be heroes indeed—the equals of
any the world has ever seen.

And now we come to the last sad scenes at Appomattox,
and how vivid they seem even now after the lapse of thirty-six
years! The Thirty-second Regiment, now reduced to a mere
handful, a skeleton of its former self, arrived at the village
of Appomattox Court House shortly before daylight on that
fateful Sunday, 9 April, and after a brief halt, joined in
that last memorable charge, driving the enemy nearly a mile.
But all in vain, for they were soon ordered back and in a
short time it was sadly whispered that General Lee had sur-
rendered. This could scarcely be believed at first, and when
it was ascertained to be true, strong men wept, and battle-
scarred veterans trembled with emotion too deep for utter-
ance.

That afternoon General John B. Gordon made a speech to
the troops assembled in a hollow square. On Wednesday
morning our little band started home, and the Thirty-second
Regiment ceased to exist, but the memory of its gallantry, its
glorious record, and its heroic deeds should live forever!

Hewry A. Lonpon.

Pirrssoro, N,. C.,
9 April, 1901.