258 NortH Carortina Troops, 1861-’65.

cling the borders of the Confederacy and consuming like stub-
ble fresh armies and fresh generals of its enemy, and twice
bursting the bounds of its territory, leaped into the heart of
the enemy’s country. It made immortal almost every hill and
dale of the Old Dominion, and electrified the civilized world
with its deeds of heroism; and though wounded nigh unto
death at Gettysburg, it afterwards, at the Wilderness, at
Spottsylvania and at second Cold Harbor, against odds in-
ealeulable, performed prodigies of valor far in.excess of any
of its former achievements. But the time was at hand when
it became possible for these men, 60,000 in number, poorly
fed, badly shod and without suitable clothing, and losing
their strength even in their victories, to be driven back by
140,000 upon their capital for a last stand. Through the
long siege of eight months, in the trenches around Peters-
burg, the survivors in seasons of extreme heat and extreme
cold, suffering from a want of food and clothes, maintained,
yet without hope, their courage and their self-respect; and
they finally left their post only upon an order from their
great leader, and after they had repulsed a series of desperate
assaults. For a week, on their retreat without rest, and hun-
gry, they flung defiance at their enemies and responded with
alacrity to every order to face their pursuers until at last, at
the end, they threw themselves upon their foes now blocking
their way with a wail of despair drowned by the roar of ar-
tillery and the rattle of their rifles; and then,—

“The pennon droops that led the sacred band
Along the crimson field.”

Thenceforward the Army of Northern Virginia lived only
in history.

To the Southerners of that day Appomattox was the tomb
of their social aspirations; the sepulchre of their political
hopes; for no people ever made nobler sacrifices for their
convictions than they did for theirs; and no people ever loved
more devotedly, or more fully believed in their cause, than
did the Confederates in theirs; and their grief over the result
was proportioned to their love and their faith.

With the dying away of the cannon’s last echoes, the
idea of State sovereignty—of American interest, and Negro

PHN TRS Nipomo apa a Ya tL a A RTA Me he afar a mete leat ES i oar Frame

APPOMATTOX AND THE Return Home. 259

slavery—of world-wide concern, perished together, to be
succeeded, in short, by National supremacy and univer-
sal freedom. Then, and there, was settled, as far as opin-
ion can be settled by force, that question of transcendant
consequence to our country, unfortunately left an open one
by our Constitution makers, to-wit.: whether a State can
withdraw of its own volition from the Union. From that
day, the view of a consolidated National Government in con-
tradistinction to one strictly Federal with supreme allegiance
to the State has grown in public favor until the Great Re-
public in very recent years has acquired possessions in the
farthest quarters of the globe and seems determined, contrary
to the traditions of our people and the conservatism of the
past, to take an active share in shaping the destinies of the
nations.

But that which gave the occurrence universal importance
was that with the destruction of the military power of the
South an idea—the belief that one man may have a right of
property in another—an idea as old, in some form or other,
as history itself was exploded. Emancipation had been pro-
claimed by the President more than two years before, but Ap-
pomattox made the proclamation enforceable. Brazil fol-
lowed in 1872 and Russia a little later.

But, I am to write more particularly of my recollections
of the occurrences of that day and of my return to my home.

I was then 20 years old, the February before, and a Lieu-
tenant of Company F, Twelfth North Carolina Regiment,
R. D. Johnston’s Brigade, Pegram’s Division, then com-
manded by General James A. Walker. A restless night,
passed a mile away on the pld Richmond and Lynchburg
stage road, preceded the fateful morrow. There was present
throughout its long hours a dull. sense of impending catas-
trophe quickened by an occasional and ominous discharge of
cannon and small arms to our left and front. Before the
dawn we were up and under arms, and without water or
food commenced, as we thought, the march for Lynchburg.
As we entered the eastern limits of the town, in column of
fours, and just as the sun was rising, a cannon shot screamed
over our heads from our immediate front, and we then knew