Lee's Last Campaign

The Condition of the Army of Northern Virginia in its Last Days--The Lines in Front of Petersburg--The Battles Around the City--The Final Struggle--Terrible Fighting--The Assaults on Forts Mahone and Gregg--Thrilling Scenes--The Main Bodies of Both Armies Stand and Look Anxiously On--The Confederate Army Severed--The Evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg--The Greetings of Petersburg Ladies to the Retreating Columns--The Retreat and Pursuit to Appomattox Court House.

When I returned to my command in the early part of March, after a long absence as a prisoner, I was greatly depressed at the sad state of feeling in which I found almost the whole army.--The buoyant, hopeful tone that animated them during the bloody and heroic struggles in the Wilderness, and at Spotsylvania, was gone. The men who followed the immortal Jackson in his historic and eventful campaigns, and endured every fatigue and hardship without a murmur, in the full hope of eventual victory, were dejected, crestfallen and despondent. The wear and tear of a continuous campaign from the Rappahannoc to the James, and the disasters of the Valley struggle of the previous fall, together with the continuous marching and counter-marching on their present lines, without rest and with short rations, were telling upon their hardy natures. Longstreet's veterans, who had followed their old leader from the ensanguined fields of Virginia to Chicamauga and East Tennessee, and who had again been forwarded to their old fields of conflict, were thinned in numbers, and had lost much of the fierce fire of pluck that characterised them of old.

The lines were long, stretching from below Richmond, on the north side of the James, to Hatcher's run, away beyond Petersburg, on the south side. A countless host were just in front of them, watching an opportunity to strike where the lines were the weakest.--The Confederate army numbered perhaps 60,000 all told--artillery, cavalry and infantry, and with 40 miles of defence, the battle-line was thin as a skirmish, and the duty incessant and fatiguing in the greatest degree. On some parts of the line the crack of the rifle, the booming of artillery, and the bursting of the mortar shells were incessant.

Desertions were very numerous, both to the enemy and to the rear, and I early found that the army had at last succumbed, not to the enemy in front, but to the discontent, the murmurings, despondency and demoralization among the people at home, who infused their hopeless dejection, by furloughed men returning to their commands, and by letters.

Longstreet commanded the Confederate left, across the James, and his right division extended to within a few miles of Petersburg. Gordon came next, with his three divisions, thinned by arduous and fatiguing marches and bloody battles in the Shenandoah Valley, to the dimensions of only respectable brigades. He commanded just in front of Petersburg, from the Appomattox to a small stream just to the right of the city, which, not knowing its correct name, I will call Silver run; and it was along this line, almost its entire length, that a continuous struggle for months had been kept up, and in some places the opposing forces were scarce a dozen yards apart. A. P. Hill, with his three divisions, held the right, extending to Hatcher's run, while the cavalry guarded either flank.

The Confederates had no reserves, and when a brigade was taken to assist at some threatened point, the position they left was endangered, and safety was only insured by the unconsciousness of the Federals. There were dozens of times during the winter, had Grant only known it, when an assault could have been made with the same result of the last one, which caused the evacuation.

In the last days of March, the 27th, I think, Gen. Lee made his last offensive demonstration, which ended in failure, and demonstrated the condition of his troops. The assault I allude to was on Gordon's line, two miles south of the Appomattox, and just to the left of the Crater. Robbing other portions of his line, he massed two divisions, and early in the morning dashed on the abattis of the Federals. They were surprised, and the sharpshooters of Grimes' division, composing the advance, succeeded in driving them from their works, and Lee's troops occupied their breastworks for a distance of a quarter of a mile, with comparatively no loss, and with a loss to the Federals of one principal fort (Haskell) and some 500 prisoners.--Had this opportunity been taken advantage of, there is no telling the result, which would have ensued, but Lee's troops could not be induced to leave the breastworks, taken from their enemy and advance beyond. They hugged the works in disorder, until the Federals recovered from their surprise, and soon the artillery in the forts to the right and left began their murderous fire on them, and when fresh troops were brought up by the Federals, their advance was almost unresisted, and an easy recapture was obtained, the Confederates retiring under a severe fire into their old works. Many of the men took shelter under the breastworks they had captured, and surrendered when the Federals advanced, and the result was a Confederate loss treble that of their foe. This affair demonstrated to all that the day of offensive movements on the part of the Confederates was gone. One more such disaster would have been irreparable.

Comparative quiet reigned after, along the whole line, for two or three days, when again the vindictive fire of picket and mortar was re-inaugurated, and the spiteful whiz of the minnie kept all cramped within the narrow limits of the trenches.

Just before the final struggle, it appeared as if the scene of hostilities had been transferred from Gordon's immediate front. On his front there was a painful lull in the firing; painful because it denoted that the Federals intended to operate elsewhere, and we were in suspense. The heavy booming of guns was heard away on our right, sounding like distant thunder. Again it would open on our extreme left, and the rattle of musketry and the lumber of the great guns would persuade us that the ball had opened for a surety in that direction, but, after a few impulsive volleys, strife would cease, and a calm would prevail.

The indications assured us all that the day and hour of the beginning of the spring campaign was near at hand. The increasing signs of activity inside the enemy's lines filled the air and caused it to vibrate with the buz and hum of reinforcements, and the great addition to their drum corps and trumpeters, whose morning reveille shut out even the sound of fire-arms, gave ample evidence of it. Clouds of dust away in their rear clearly showed that troops were moving. Each night the Confederates unfolded their blankets and unloosed their shoe-strings in uncertainty.

A day or two previous to the decisive 2nd, the cannonading on the extreme right grew fiercer and more continuous, and we all thought that the strategy of Grant was being uncovered. Every available man from the Confederate left and centre was hurried to the right. Pickett's entire division was sent thither to the assistance of Bushrod Johnson, who occupied A. P. Hill's right, and Longstreet put in command. On the 30th of March, the left brigade of Hill's corps, (McGowan's,) whose left rested on Silver run, was moved to the right, leaving only artillerists in the trenches, and the picket in front. Cox's brigade, of Grimes' division, held the right of Gordon's corps and extended to the left bank of the run. On the 1st of March and 1st of April, the battle seemed hotter on the right, and the heavy water-batteries on the left boomed incessantly. It appeared as if our corps, (Gordon's,) which had become powder-blackened and sulphur-fumed with the baptism of battle for the several weeks previous, were to escape the assaulting might and vengeance of the Federals, and many an old soldier, while listening to the distant roar, congratulated himself and his command that they were to escape this time. But they reckoned without their host.

The battle opened on Gordon's front at 3-1/2 o'clock on the morning of the 2d, and the conflict then seemed general along the whole line. The earth shook under the jar and sound. The air was thick with death-dealing missiles, and the whole atmosphere lit up luridly from the firing of cannon, the bursting of shell and the flash of the rifle. In the darkness it seemed as if the hand of Deity had let loose its hold upon the world, its attraction was gone, and, amid thunder and lightning and tempest, the chaotic masses of earth and sky were commingling together in grand confusion.

But this was only the interlude foreshadowing the tragedy of the dawn. Grant did not intend to surprise the Confederates by rushing madly and headlong at a given point, without warning or notice. He put them on the alert all along the entire line, but they were unaware where he intended to strike in deadly earnest. At dawn earnest charges, in double column, were made at different points on the line, but without success. Still the continuous roar was kept up from fort and battery, by cannon and mortar, and one no longer knew how the battle was going, away from one's own immediate front, except by the assurance given by the answering thunder of the guns. About noon, it seemed as if the battle raged fiercer if possible. The god of war was reveling incarnately. Huge masses of sulphurous smoke hung over the scene of conflict. Every piece of artillery in the thickly studded forts, batteries and mortar-beds on both sides were at their best, and their reports savagely, terrifically crashing through the narrow streets and lanes of Petersburg, echoed upwards, and made it appear as if invisible fiends of the air were engaged, like us, in bloody conflict.

It was at this moment that the Federals made their most determined effort on Gordon's lines, and by heroic bravery and daring, and amid great slaughter, succeeded in taking a portion of the breastworks near the Appomattox. But they could not use the advantage they had struggled so hard to obtain. The works were so constructed that the men could retreat only a few yards to another line, while their old line was exposed to the raking fire from the artillery on the right and left; at this part of the line, the artillery fire in a manner ceased, and, from the construction of the works, an almost individual battle was kept up until dark, with no more advantage gained on the Federal side than the taking of the first line, which they were unable to hold in a body.

While this fierce battle was raging on the left of the "Crater," other parts of the line to the right were hotly engaged, but the Confederates succeeded in repulsing every effort. About 2 p. m., heavy masses of troops were concentrated by the Federals directly opposite the position which McGowan's brigade had left the day previous. It took place while a seeming lull had occurred in the battle. I saw them when they first came in sight, marching in line of battle, three columns deep, apparently by divisions, their guns glistening and sparkling in the sun, and their blue uniforms seemingly black in the distance.--They drove the Confederate skirmishers before them with impunity, and when they reached point blank range received the fire of the batteries in the breastworks without staggering. Had infantry been there, perhaps another tale might have been told, but without their assistance the Confederate batteries were carried in a moment, and the long line of breastworks was theirs, and of the few men that occupied them, some fled to the rear and others to the right and left. A loud huzza, that drowned the sound of battle on other parts of the line, greeted our ears and gave assurance to our right that a success had been gained by the Federals, and disaster had befallen the Confederates.