—President Abraham Lincoln
* * *
I pledge to you that my study is to accomplish peace and honor at as small a cost to life and property as possible…and I will take infinitely more delight in curing the wounds made by war than by inflicting them.195
—Union General William Tecumseh Sherman
* * *
Our people are tired of war, feel themselves whipped, and will not fight. Our country is overrun, its military reserves are greatly diminished, while the enemy’s military power and resources were never greater, and may be increased to any extent desired.196
—Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, in April 1865
* * *
I want no one punished. Treat them liberally all around. We want those people to return to their allegiance to the Union and submit to the laws.197
—President Abraham Lincoln, message to General Grant shortly before Lee surrendered
* * *
Better a generation should die on the battle-field, that their children may grow up in liberty and justice. Yes, our sons must die, their sons must die. We give ours freely; they die to redeem the very brothers that slay them; they give their blood in expiation of this great sin.198
—Abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe
* * *
My shoes are gone; my clothes are almost gone. I’m weary, I’m sick, I’m hungry. My family have been killed or scattered. And I have suffered all this for my country. I love my country… But if this war is ever over, I’ll be damned if I ever love another country!199
—A Confederate soldier
* * *
Richmond has fallen, and I have no heart to write about it… They are too many for us. Everything lost in Richmond, even our archives. Blue-black is our horizon.200
—Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut
* * *
General Sheridan says, “If the thing is pressed I think that Lee will surrender.” Let the thing be pressed.201
—President Abraham Lincoln, in a telegram to Ulysses S. Grant shortly before Appomattox
* * *
There is nothing left but to go to General Grant; and I would rather die a thousand deaths.202
—Confederate General Robert E. Lee, when he realized he must surrender
* * *
We walked in softly and ranged ourselves quietly about the sides of the room, very much as people enter a sick chamber when they expect to find the patient dangerously ill.203
—Union General Horace Porter, describing the surrender room at Appomattox Court House
* * *
I turned about; and there behind me, riding in between my two lines, appeared a commanding form, superbly mounted, richly accoutered; of imposing bearing, noble countenance, with expression of deep sadness, overmastered by deeper strength. It is no other than Robert E. Lee! And seen by me for the first time within my own lines. I sat immovable, with a certain awe and admiration.204
—Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, describing Lee’s approach to Appomattox Court House
* * *
To Honorable E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War: General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia this afternoon on terms proposed by myself.205
—Union General Ulysses S. Grant, telegram, April 9, 1865
7
We Are All Americans
Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his army, who had retreated from Richmond, were stopped by the forces of Ulysses S. Grant near Appomattox Court House on April 8, 1861.
Decisions made by the opposing commanders on April 9 had monumental benefits for the nation. First, Lee refused to heed the advice of Confederate General Edward Alexander, who suggested he disperse the Confederate army to continue fighting, guerrilla-style, rather than surrender. Lee knew what disastrous consequences such an action would have for “the country.” Second, Grant’s magnanimous terms of surrender permitted the Confederate soldiers to go home immediately, immune to future prosecution by government authorities. Grant had received this direction from Abraham Lincoln, who was by the end of the war undoubtedly the South’s best friend. Tragically, within five days of Lee’s surrender, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.
* * *
Sunday April 9, 1865. Near Appomattox Court House, Va. Glory to God in the highest. Peace on Earth, good will to men! Thank God Lee has surrendered, and the war will soon end… I was never so happy in my life.206
—Union soldier Elisha Hunt Rhodes
* * *
The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again.207
—Union General Ulysses S. Grant
Confederate General Robert E. Lee
“In the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing… My trust is in the mercy and wisdom of a kind Providence, who ordereth all things for our good.”208
We have fought this fight as long as, and as well as, we know how. We have been defeated. For us, as a Christian people, there is now but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation. These men must go home and plant a crop, and we must proceed to build up our country on a new basis.209
—Confederate General Robert E. Lee, to General Edward Alexander the day of surrender
* * *
The road was packed by standing troops as he [General Lee] approached, the men with hats off, heads and hearts bowed down. As he passed they raised their heads and looked upon him with swimming eyes. Those who could find voice said good-bye, and those who could not speak, and were near, passed their hands gently over the sides of Traveller [Lee’s horse].210
—Confederate General James Longstreet, after Lee’s surrender
* * *
On they come [the surrendering Confederate troops] with the old swinging route step and swaying battle flags. Before us, in proud humiliation, stood the embodiment of manhood. Thin, worn and famished, but erect and with eyes looking level into ours. Waking memories that bound us together as no other bond. Was not such manhood to be welcomed back into the Union so tested and assured? On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word, nor whisper of vain glorying, nor motion of man. But an awed stillness rather and breath holding, as if it were the passing of the dead.211
—Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, describing the surrender ceremony at Appomattox
* * *
One of the Knightliest soldiers of the Federal army, General Joshua L. Chamberlain of Maine, who afterward served with distinction as governor of his State, called his troops into line, and as my men marched in front of them, the veterans in blue gave a soldierly salute to those vanquished heroes—a token of respect from Americans to Americans, a final and fitting tribute from Northern to Southern chivalry.212
—Confederate General John Brown Gordon, writing of the surrender at Appomattox
* * *
We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top. In our youths, our hearts were touched by fire.213
—Oliver Wendell Holmes
* * *
At the sound of [the Union troops’] machine-like snap of arms, General Gordon started, caught in a moment its significance, and instantly assumed the finest attitude of a soldier. He wheeled his horse, facing me, touching him gently with a spur, so that the animal slightly reared, and, as he wheeled, horse and rider made one motion, the horse’s head swung down with a graceful bow, and General Gordon dropped his sword point to his toe in salutation. By word of mouth the general sent back orders to the rear that his own troops take the same position of the manual in the march past as did our line. That was done, and a truly imposing sight was the mutual salutation and farewell.214
—Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, describing the Confederate commander’s reaction to the Union salutes at Appomattox
* * *
Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!215
—Actor John Wilkes Booth, after shooting Abraham
Lincoln
* * *
Now he belongs to the ages.216
—Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, at Lincoln’s deathbed
* * *
The South has lost its best friend.217
—Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, on the death of Lincoln
* * *
Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness and goodness than any other.218
—Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, speaking of Abraham Lincoln
* * *
Had he [Lincoln] put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined.219
—Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass
* * *
Lincoln, old Abe Lincoln, killed, murdered!… Why? By whom? It is simply maddening… I know this foul murder will bring down worse miseries on us.220
—Southern diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut
* * *
Strange (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, agonies, blood, even assassination should so condense—perhaps only really lastingly condense—a Nationality.221
—Walt Whitman
* * *
Southern newspaper articles of three or four years ago make me feel very old… We have lived a century of common life since then.222
—Northern diarist George Templeton Strong, in 1865
* * *
The pageant has passed. That day is over. But we linger, loath to think we shall see them no more together—these men, these horses, these colors afield.223
—Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
* * *
I have never on the field of battle sent you where I was unwilling to go myself, nor would I now advise you to a course which I felt myself unwilling to pursue. You have been good soldiers. You can be good citizens. Obey the laws, preserve your honor, and the government to which you have surrendered can afford to be and will be magnanimous.224
—Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest
* * *
America has no North, no South, no East, no West. The sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a North and a South. We are one and undivided.225
—Confederate soldier Sam Watkins
* * *
Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States. Remember, we are one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring them up to be Americans.226
—Confederate General Robert E. Lee, talking to a woman after the war
* * *
Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.227
—Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
* * *
I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.228
—Former slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman, upon reaching Northern soil for the first time
* * *
How could we help but falling on our knees, all of us together, and praying God to pity and forgive us all!229
—Union General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at Appomattox
* * *
We are all Americans.230
—Ely S. Parker, Seneca Indian and member of Grant’s staff, responding to Lee’s comment that he was glad to see a “real” American at Appomattox
Union General Ulysses S. Grant
“I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and who had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”231
Excerpts from Jefferson Davis’s Inaugural Address
February 18, 1861
Gentlemen of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Friends, and Fellow Citizens:
Called to the difficult and responsible station of Chief Executive of the Provisional Government which you have instituted, I approach the discharge of the duties assigned to me with an humble distrust of my abilities, but with a sustaining confidence in the wisdom of those who are to guide and to aid me in the administration of public affairs, and an abiding faith in the virtue and patriotism of the people.
Looking forward to the speedy establishment of a permanent government to take the place of this, and which by its greater moral and physical power will be better able to combat with the many difficulties which arise from the conflicting interests of separate nations, I enter upon the duties of the office to which I have been chosen with the hope that the beginning of our career as a Confederacy may not be obstructed by hostile opposition to our enjoyment of the separate existence and independence which we have asserted, and, with the blessing of Providence, intend to maintain. Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.
The declared purpose of the compact of Union from which we have withdrawn was “to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;” and when, in the judgment of the sovereign States now composing this Confederacy, it had been perverted from the purposes for which it was ordained, and had ceased to answer the ends for which it was established, a peaceful appeal to the ballot box declared that so far as they were concerned, the government created by that compact should cease to exist. In this they merely asserted a right which the Declaration of Independence of 1776 had defined to be inalienable; of the time and occasion for its exercise, they, as sovereigns, were the final judges, each for itself. The impartial and enlightened verdict of mankind will vindicate the rectitude of our conduct, and He who knows the hearts of men will judge of the sincerity with which we labored to preserve the Government of our fathers in its spirit. The right solemnly proclaimed at the birth of the States, and which has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the bills of rights of States subsequently admitted into the Union of 1789, undeniably recognize in the people the power to resume the authority delegated for the purposes of government. Thus the sovereign States here represented proceeded to form this Confederacy, and it is by abuse of language that their act has been denominated a revolution. They formed a new alliance, but within each State its government has remained, the rights of person and property have not been disturbed. The agent through whom they communicated with foreign nations is changed, but this does not necessarily interrupt their international relations.
Sustained by the consciousness that the transition from the former Union to the present Confederacy has not proceeded from a disregard on our part of just obligations, or any failure to perform every constitutional duty, moved by no interest or passion to invade the rights of others, anxious to cultivate peace and commerce with all nations, if we may not hope to avoid war, we may at least expect that posterity will acquit us of having needlessly engaged in it. Doubly justified by the absence of wrong on our part, and by wanton aggression on the part of others, there can be no cause to doubt that the courage and patriotism of the people of the Confederate States will be found equal to any measures of defense which honor and security may req
uire…
…Through many years of controversy with our late associates, the Northern States, we have vainly endeavored to secure tranquility, and to obtain respect for the rights to which we were entitled. As a necessity, not a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separation; and henceforth our energies must be directed to the conduct of our own affairs, and the perpetuity of the Confederacy which we have formed. If a just perception of mutual interest shall permit us peaceably to pursue our separate political career, my most earnest desire will have been fulfilled. But, if this be denied to us, and the integrity of our territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us, with firm resolve, to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence on a just cause…
…Actuated solely by the desire to preserve our own rights and promote our own welfare, the separation of the Confederate States has been marked by no aggression upon others and followed by no domestic convulsion…
…We have changed the constituent parts, but not the system of our Government. The Constitution formed by our fathers is that of these Confederate States, in their exposition of it, and in the judicial construction it has received, we have a light which reveals its true meaning…
It is joyous, in the midst of perilous times, to look around upon a people united in heart, where one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole—where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the balance against honor and right and liberty and equality. Obstacles may retard, they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice, and sustained by a virtuous people. Reverently let us invoke the God of our fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate the principles which, by his blessing, they were able to vindicate, establish and transmit to their posterity, and with a continuance of His favor, ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hopefully look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity.232
The Civil War Page 5