CHAPTER LXIII.

ARRIVAL OF THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS--LINCOLN AND THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS

--AN ANECDOTE OF LINCOLN--THE WINTER BEFORE PETERSBURG--SHERIDAN DESTROYS

THE RAILROAD--GORDON CARRIES THE PICKET LINE--PARKE RECAPTURES THE LINE

--THE LINE OF BATTLE OF WHITE OAK ROAD.

On the last of January, 1865, peace commissioners from the so-called

Confederate States presented themselves on our lines around Petersburg,

and were immediately conducted to my headquarters at City Point. They

proved to be Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy,

Judge Campbell, Assistant-Secretary of War, and R. M. T. Hunt, formerly

United States Senator and then a member of the Confederate Senate.

It was about dark when they reached my headquarters, and I at once

conducted them to the steam Mary Martin, a Hudson River boat which was

very comfortably fitted up for the use of passengers. I at once

communicated by telegraph with Washington and informed the Secretary of

War and the President of the arrival of these commissioners and that

their object was to negotiate terms of peace between the United States

and, as they termed it, the Confederate Government. I was instructed to

retain them at City Point, until the President, or some one whom he

would designate, should come to meet them. They remained several days

as guests on board the boat. I saw them quite frequently, though I have

no recollection of having had any conversation whatever with them on the

subject of their mission. It was something I had nothing to do with,

and I therefore did not wish to express any views on the subject. For

my own part I never had admitted, and never was ready to admit, that

they were the representatives of a GOVERNMENT. There had been too great

a waste of blood and treasure to concede anything of the kind. As long

as they remained there, however, our relations were pleasant and I found

them all very agreeable gentlemen. I directed the captain to furnish

them with the best the boat afforded, and to administer to their comfort

in every way possible. No guard was placed over them and no restriction

was put upon their movements; nor was there any pledge asked that they

would not abuse the privileges extended to them. They were permitted to

leave the boat when they felt like it, and did so, coming up on the bank

and visiting me at my headquarters.

I had never met either of these gentlemen before the war, but knew them

well by reputation and through their public services, and I had been a

particular admirer of Mr. Stephens. I had always supposed that he was a

very small man, but when I saw him in the dusk of the evening I was very

much surprised to find so large a man as he seemed to be. When he got

down on to the boat I found that he was wearing a coarse gray woollen

overcoat, a manufacture that had been introduced into the South during

the rebellion. The cloth was thicker than anything of the kind I had

ever seen, even in Canada. The overcoat extended nearly to his feet,

and was so large that it gave him the appearance of being an

average-sized man. He took this off when he reached the cabin of the

boat, and I was struck with the apparent change in size, in the coat and

out of it.

After a few days, about the 2d of February, I received a dispatch from

Washington, directing me to send the commissioners to Hampton Roads to

meet the President and a member of the cabinet. Mr. Lincoln met them

there and had an interview of short duration. It was not a great while

after they met that the President visited me at City Point. He spoke of

his having met the commissioners, and said he had told them that there

would be no use in entering into any negotiations unless they would

recognize, first: that the Union as a whole must be forever preserved,

and second: that slavery must be abolished. If they were willing to

concede these two points, then he was ready to enter into negotiations

and was almost willing to hand them a blank sheet of paper with his

signature attached for them to fill in the terms upon which they were

willing to live with us in the Union and be one people. He always

showed a generous and kindly spirit toward the Southern people, and I

never heard him abuse an enemy. Some of the cruel things said about

President Lincoln, particularly in the North, used to pierce him to the

heart; but never in my presence did he evince a revengeful disposition

and I saw a great deal of him at City Point, for he seemed glad to get

away from the cares and anxieties of the capital.

Right here I might relate an anecdote of Mr. Lincoln. It was on the

occasion of his visit to me just after he had talked with the peace

commissioners at Hampton Roads. After a little conversation, he asked

me if I had seen that overcoat of Stephens's. I replied that I had.

"Well," said he, "did you see him take it off?" I said yes. "Well,"

said he, "didn't you think it was the biggest shuck and the littlest ear

that ever you did see?" Long afterwards I told this story to the

Confederate General J. B. Gordon, at the time a member of the Senate.

He repeated it to Stephens, and, as I heard afterwards, Stephens laughed

immoderately at the simile of Mr. Lincoln.

The rest of the winter, after the departure of the peace commissioners,

passed off quietly and uneventfully, except for two or three little

incidents. On one occasion during this period, while I was visiting

Washington City for the purpose of conferring with the administration,

the enemy's cavalry under General Wade Hampton, passing our extreme left

and then going to the south, got in east of us. Before their presence

was known, they had driven off a large number of beef cattle that were

grazing in that section. It was a fair capture, and they were

sufficiently needed by the Confederates. It was only retaliating for

what we had done, sometimes for many weeks at a time, when out of

supplies taking what the Confederate army otherwise would have gotten.

As appears in this book, on one single occasion we captured five

thousand head of cattle which were crossing the Mississippi River near

Port Hudson on their way from Texas to supply the Confederate army in

the East.

One of the most anxious periods of my experience during the rebellion

was the last few weeks before Petersburg. I felt that the situation of

the Confederate army was such that they would try to make an escape at

the earliest practicable moment, and I was afraid, every morning, that I

would awake from my sleep to hear that Lee had gone, and that nothing

was left but a picket line. He had his railroad by the way of Danville

south, and I was afraid that he was running off his men and all stores

and ordnance except such as it would be necessary to carry with him for

his immediate defence. I knew he could move much more lightly and more

rapidly than I, and that, if he got the start, he would leave me behind

so that we would have the same army to fight again farther south and the

war might be prolonged another year.

I was led to this fear by the fact that I could not see how it was

possible for the Confederates to hold out much longer where they were.

There is no doubt that Richmond would have been evacuated much sooner

than it was, if it had not been that it was the capital of the so-called

Confederacy, and the fact of evacuating the capital would, of course,

have had a very demoralizing effect upon the Confederate army. When it

was evacuated (as we shall see further on), the Confederacy at once

began to crumble and fade away. Then, too, desertions were taking

place, not only among those who were with General Lee in the

neighborhood of their capital, but throughout the whole Confederacy. I

remember that in a conversation with me on one occasion long prior to

this, General Butler remarked that the Confederates would find great

difficulty in getting more men for their army; possibly adding, though I

am not certain as to this, "unless they should arm the slave."

The South, as we all knew, were conscripting every able-bodied man

between the ages of eighteen and forty-five; and now they had passed a

law for the further conscription of boys from fourteen to eighteen,

calling them the junior reserves, and men from forty-five to sixty to be

called the senior reserves. The latter were to hold the necessary

points not in immediate danger, and especially those in the rear.

General Butler, in alluding to this conscription, remarked that they

were thus "robbing both the cradle and the grave," an expression which I

afterwards used in writing a letter to Mr. Washburn.

It was my belief that while the enemy could get no more recruits they

were losing at least a regiment a day, taking it throughout the entire

army, by desertions alone. Then by casualties of war, sickness, and

other natural causes, their losses were much heavier. It was a mere

question of arithmetic to calculate how long they could hold out while

that rate of depletion was going on. Of course long before their army

would be thus reduced to nothing the army which we had in the field

would have been able to capture theirs. Then too I knew from the great

number of desertions, that the men who had fought so bravely, so

gallantly and so long for the cause which they believed in--and as

earnestly, I take it, as our men believed in the cause for which they

were fighting--had lost hope and become despondent. Many of them were

making application to be sent North where they might get employment

until the war was over, when they could return to their Southern homes.

For these and other reasons I was naturally very impatient for the time

to come when I could commence the spring campaign, which I thoroughly

believed would close the war.

There were two considerations I had to observe, however, and which

detained me. One was the fact that the winter had been one of heavy

rains, and the roads were impassable for artillery and teams. It was

necessary to wait until they had dried sufficiently to enable us to move

the wagon trains and artillery necessary to the efficiency of an army

operating in the enemy's country. The other consideration was that

General Sheridan with the cavalry of the Army of the Potomac was

operating on the north side of the James River, having come down from

the Shenandoah. It was necessary that I should have his cavalry with me,

and I was therefore obliged to wait until he could join me south of the

James River.

Let us now take account of what he was doing.

On the 5th of March I had heard from Sheridan. He had met Early between

Staunton and Charlottesville and defeated him, capturing nearly his

entire command. Early and some of his officers escaped by finding

refuge in the neighboring houses or in the woods.

On the 12th I heard from him again. He had turned east, to come to

White House. He could not go to Lynchburg as ordered, because the rains

had been so very heavy and the streams were so very much swollen. He

had a pontoon train with him, but it would not reach half way across

some of the streams, at their then stage of water, which he would have

to get over in going south as first ordered.

I had supplies sent around to White House for him, and kept the depot

there open until he arrived. We had intended to abandon it because the

James River had now become our base of supplies.

Sheridan had about ten thousand cavalry with him, divided into two

divisions commanded respectively by Custer and Devin. General Merritt

was acting as chief of cavalry. Sheridan moved very light, carrying

only four days' provisions with him, with a larger supply of coffee,

salt and other small rations, and a very little else besides ammunition.

They stopped at Charlottesville and commenced tearing up the railroad

back toward Lynchburg. He also sent a division along the James River

Canal to destroy locks, culverts etc. All mills and factories along the

lines of march of his troops were destroyed also.

Sheridan had in this way consumed so much time that his making a march

to White House was now somewhat hazardous. He determined therefore to

fight his way along the railroad and canal till he was as near to

Richmond as it was possible to get, or until attacked. He did this,

destroying the canal as far as Goochland, and the railroad to a point as

near Richmond as he could get. On the 10th he was at Columbia. Negroes

had joined his column to the number of two thousand or more, and they

assisted considerably in the work of destroying the railroads and the

canal. His cavalry was in as fine a condition as when he started,

because he had been able to find plenty of forage. He had captured most

of Early's horses and picked up a good many others on the road. When he

reached Ashland he was assailed by the enemy in force. He resisted

their assault with part of his command, moved quickly across the South

and North Anna, going north, and reached White House safely on the 19th.

The time for Sherman to move had to be fixed with reference to the time

he could get away from Goldsboro where he then was. Supplies had to be

got up to him which would last him through a long march, as there would

probably not be much to be obtained in the country through which he

would pass. I had to arrange, therefore, that he should start from

where he was, in the neighborhood of Goldsboro on the 18th of April, the

earliest day at which he supposed he could be ready.

Sherman was anxious that I should wait where I was until he could come

up, and make a sure thing of it; but I had determined to move as soon as

the roads and weather would admit of my doing so. I had been tied down

somewhat in the matter of fixing any time at my pleasure for starting,

until Sheridan, who was on his way from the Shenandoah Valley to join

me, should arrive, as both his presence and that of his cavalry were

necessary to the execution of the plans which I had in mind. However,

having arrived at White House on the 19th of March, I was enabled to

make my plans.

Prompted by my anxiety lest Lee should get away some night before I was

aware of it, and having the lead of me, push into North Carolina to join

with Johnston in attempting to crush out Sherman, I had, as early as the

1st of the month of March, given instructions to the troops around

Petersburg to keep a sharp lookout to see that such a movement should

not escape their notice, and to be ready strike at once if it was

undertaken.

It is now known that early in the month of March Mr. Davis and General

Lee had a consultation about the situation of affairs in and about and

Petersburg, and they both agreed places were no longer tenable for them,

and that they must get away as soon as possible. They, too, were

waiting for dry roads, or a condition of the roads which would make it

possible to move.

General Lee, in aid of his plan of escape, and to secure a wider opening

to enable them to reach the Danville Road with greater security than he

would have in the way the two armies were situated, determined upon an

assault upon the right of our lines around Petersburg. The night of the

24th of March was fixed upon for this assault, and General Gordon was

assigned to the execution of the plan. The point between Fort Stedman

and Battery No. 10, where our lines were closest together, was selected

as the point of his attack. The attack was to be made at night, and the

troops were to get possession of the higher ground in the rear where

they supposed we had intrenchments, then sweep to the right and left,

create a panic in the lines of our army, and force me to contract my

lines. Lee hoped this would detain me a few days longer and give him an

opportunity of escape. The plan was well conceived and the execution of

it very well done indeed, up to the point of carrying a portion of our

line.

Gordon assembled his troops under the cover of night, at the point at

which they were to make their charge, and got possession of our

picket-line, entirely without the knowledge of the troops inside of our

main line of intrenchments; this reduced the distance he would have to

charge over to not much more than fifty yards. For some time before the

deserters had been coming in with great frequency, often bringing their

arms with them, and this the Confederate general knew. Taking advantage

of this knowledge he sent his pickets, with their arms, creeping through

to ours as if to desert. When they got to our lines they at once took

possession and sent our pickets to the rear as prisoners. In the main

line our men were sleeping serenely, as if in great security. This plan

was to have been executed and much damage done before daylight; but the

troops that were to reinforce Gordon had to be brought from the north

side of the James River and, by some accident on the railroad on their

way over, they were detained for a considerable time; so that it got to

be nearly daylight before they were ready to make the charge.

The charge, however, was successful and almost without loss, the enemy

passing through our lines between Fort Stedman and Battery No. 10. Then

turning to the right and left they captured the fort and the battery,

with all the arms and troops in them. Continuing the charge, they also

carried batteries Eleven and Twelve to our left, which they turned

toward City Point.

Meade happened to be at City Point that night, and this break in his

line cut him off from all communication with his headquarters. Parke,

however, commanding the 9th corps when this breach took place,

telegraphed the facts to Meade's headquarters, and learning that the

general was away, assumed command himself and with commendable

promptitude made all preparations to drive the enemy back. General

Tidball gathered a large number of pieces of artillery and planted them

in rear of the captured works so as to sweep the narrow space of ground

between the lines very thoroughly. Hartranft was soon out with his

division, as also was Willcox. Hartranft to the right of the breach

headed the rebels off in that direction and rapidly drove them back into

Fort Stedman. On the other side they were driven back into the

intrenchments which they had captured, and batteries eleven and twelve

were retaken by Willcox early in the morning.

Parke then threw a line around outside of the captured fort and

batteries, and communication was once more established. The artillery

fire was kept up so continuously that it was impossible for the

Confederates to retreat, and equally impossible for reinforcements to

join them. They all, therefore, fell captives into our hands. This

effort of Lee's cost him about four thousand men, and resulted in their

killing, wounding and capturing about two thousand of ours.

After the recapture of the batteries taken by the Confederates, our

troops made a charge and carried the enemy's intrenched picket line,

which they strengthened and held. This, in turn, gave us but a short

distance to charge over when our attack came to be made a few days

later.

The day that Gordon was making dispositions for this attack (24th of

March) I issued my orders for the movement to commence on the 29th.

Ord, with three divisions of infantry and Mackenzie's cavalry, was to

move in advance on the night of the 27th, from the north side of the

James River and take his place on our extreme left, thirty miles away.

He left Weitzel with the rest of the Army of the James to hold Bermuda

Hundred and the north of the James River. The engineer brigade was to

be left at City Point, and Parke's corps in the lines about Petersburg.

(*42)

Ord was at his place promptly. Humphreys and Warren were then on our

extreme left with the 2d and 5th corps. They were directed on the

arrival of Ord, and on his getting into position in their places, to

cross Hatcher's Run and extend out west toward Five Forks, the object

being to get into a position from which we could strike the South Side

Railroad and ultimately the Danville Railroad. There was considerable

fighting in taking up these new positions for the 2d and 5th corps, in

which the Army of the James had also to participate somewhat, and the

losses were quite severe.

This was what was known as the Battle of White Oak Road.