Chapter XIII

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNOR SWAIN AND GENERAL SHERMAN--GOVERNOR VANCE'S POSITION AND CONDUCT--KILPATRICK--THE CONDUCT OF THE SERVANTS--"LEE'S MEN"--PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

I am persuaded that it requires the exercise of an implicit faith, and a total rejection of the evidence of things seen, to believe that General Sherman as a man, deplored the policy which, as a general, he felt bound to pursue. I shall, however, give him the benefit of his own professions, which, whether sincere or not, are certainly in unison with the part he played in the treaty with General Johnston. The following correspondence will be read with interest:

CHAPEL HILL, April 19, 1865.

_Major-General W.T. Sherman, commanding United States Forces_:

GENERAL: ... On my return to this village on Saturday morning, fifteenth instant, I found that General Wheeler, with his division of cavalry, had been encamped here for two days. He resumed his march on Sunday morning, leaving the country denuded to a considerable extent of forage, and taking with him a number of horses and mules. General Atkins arrived with his brigade on Monday morning, and is in camp here now. I have had several interviews with General Atkins, and have pleasure in stating that he manifests a disposition to execute his orders with as much forbearance as he deems compatible with the proper discharge of his duty. Nevertheless, many worthy families have been stripped by his soldiers of the necessary means of subsistence. A Baptist clergyman--a most estimable, quiet, and charitable citizen, and the most extensive farmer within a circle of three miles--is almost entirely destitute of provision for man and beast; and with a family of more than fifty persons, (white and colored,) has not a single horse or mule. Other instances, not less striking, exist, of families in less affluent circumstances; but I refer particularly to Mr. Purefoy, because he has been my near neighbor for about thirty years, and I hold him in the highest estimation. He, like many others, is not merely without the present means of subsistence, but unless his horses and mules are restored or replaced, can make no provision for the future. The delay of a few days even may render it impossible to plant corn in proper time.

I am satisfied from the impression made on me in our recent interview, that personally, you have no disposition to add to the unavoidable horrors of war, by availing yourself of the utmost license which writers on the subject deem admissible, but that, on the contrary, you would prefer to treat the peaceful tillers of the soil with no unnecessary harshness. I venture to hope, therefore, that the present state of negotiations between the contending armies will enable you to relax the severity of the orders under which General Atkins is acting, and I am satisfied that if you shall feel yourself justified by the course of events in doing so, an intimation of your purpose will be welcome intelligence to him.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

D.L. Swain.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE } MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, } RALEIGH, N.C., April 22, 1865. }

_Hon. D.L. Swain, Chapel Hill, N.C._:

My Dear Sir: Yours of April nineteenth was laid before me yesterday, and I am pleased that you recognize in General Atkins a fair representative of our army.

The moment war ceases, and I think that time is at hand, all seizures of horses and private property will cease on our part. And it may be that we will be able to spare some animals for the use of the farmers of your neighborhood. There now exists a species of truce, but we must stand prepared for action; but I believe that in a very few days a definitive and general peace will be arranged, when I will make orders that will be in accordance with the new state of affairs.

I do believe that I fairly represent the feelings of my countrymen--that we prefer peace to war; but if war is forced upon us, we must meet it; but if peace be possible, we will accept it, and be the friends of the farmers and working classes of North-Carolina, as well as actual patrons of churches, colleges, asylums, and all institutions of learning and charity. Accept the assurances of my respect and high esteem.

I am, truly yours,

W.T. Sherman, Major-General Commanding.

Without ascribing to General Sherman any extraordinary degree of merit as a writer, I am inclined to give him credit for sincerity in these professions, simply because of the corroborating evidence afforded by his conduct in the treaty with Johnston. Their first agreement was not ratified at Washington, and General Sherman's position therein was severely censured; but no one who rightly estimated the condition of the South at the close of the war, and the state of public feeling among us, has ever doubted that, if that treaty had been ratified, the happiest results would have followed, and an immense amount of trouble, expense, and evil would have been avoided by the whole country. I repeat what I have said previously, that General Sherman alone, of all the prominent men and leaders among our antagonists, was at that time possessed of the requisite ability and statesmanship and magnanimity to comprehend the situation, and seize the opportunity and the means for an equitable adjustment of our difficulties. I greatly regret not being able to present my readers with a copy of his letter of invitation to Governor Vance to return to Raleigh. On the fourteenth of April General Johnston sent him his first letter, requesting a suspension of hostilities, with a view to entering into arrangements for putting a stop to the war. This application was replied to by General Sherman in a really noble and generous spirit, and their correspondence resulted in those interviews at Durham's Station, on the North-Carolina Central Railroad, which concluded the war and have become historical. No one can read that correspondence without seeing unmistakable evidence that General Sherman manifested an eager anxiety to save the South from further devastation. Perhaps a late remorse had touched him; but however that may be, in the _civil_ policy he has always advocated toward the South, he has shown himself at once generous and politic. If he had pursued an equally far-sighted course as a soldier; if he had advocated a humane forbearance toward the defenseless people who were crushed beneath his march; if he had enforced a strict discipline in his army, and chosen to appear as a restorer rather than as a destroyer, there are few at the South who would not join to pronounce him the hero of the war on the Northern side, and his name would worthily go down to posterity by the side of the great captain of the age, who declared, when leading his victorious veterans into France, that rather than suffer them to pillage the country as they passed, he would resign his command.

* * * * *

While Generals Johnston and Sherman were engaged in their negotiations at Durham's, Governor Vance found that by having obeyed President Davis's summons to Greensboro before accepting General Sherman's invitation to Raleigh, he was effectually precluded from all further participation in the affairs of the State. I am not at liberty to say why or how this was; but it is probable the Governor himself does not very deeply regret it, since it is not likely he would have been permitted by the Federal authorities to retain his office, even if he had returned to Raleigh and resumed the reins. All General Sherman's views and official acts as peacemaker were speedily disavowed and overruled at Washington; and though Governor Vance was willing to have made the experiment, being urged thereto by his best friends, yet, as _matters have since turned out_, it is as well that he was prevented. He and his noble State were equally incapable of any attempt to make terms for themselves, even had it been likely that any terms would have been granted. Our fortunes were to be those of our sister States whom we had joined deliberately, fought for, and suffered with; and Governor Vance was never more truly our representative than in the treatment he received from the Federal Government after the surrender.

Our Governor left Hillsboro on Saturday, arrived in Greensboro on Sunday morning, April sixteenth, and found that President Davis had left for Charlotte the day before. The whole Confederate Government left Danville the preceding Monday, April tenth, arrived at Greensboro on the same day, and had ever since been living in the cars around the railroad station at that place. Mr. Trenholm being very ill, had been taken to Governor Morehead's. But the Confederate President, and all the Government officials lived for five rainy days in the miserable leaky cars that had brought them thither, having abundant government stores of provision in their train. On the slope of a hill near by, which tradition points out as that on which General Greene had held a council of war previous to the battle of Guilford, in 1781, President Davis and his Cabinet, and Generals Beauregard and Johnston held their last conference a day or two before Governor Vance's arrival. It had resulted in the first terms which General Johnston was authorized to make with General Sherman, and he was already on his way back to Hillsboro, to hold his first interview with the Federal commander. Failing to see the President, Governor Vance would now have returned to Raleigh. All that can be said at this point is, that he _was not permitted by our military authorities to pass through their lines while the negotiations were pending_. He then followed President Davis to Charlotte, and had a final interview with him, giving him notice of his intention, as General Johnston was then on the point of surrendering the army, to surrender himself to Sherman, and use what means were in his power to save the State and State property from further ruin, treating the Confederacy as at an end. Returning to Greensboro, he found the first terms agreed upon had been rejected at Washington, and the two commanding generals were engaged in a fresh negotiation. Failing still to receive permission to proceed to Raleigh, he wrote a letter to General Sherman, and sent it by Treasurer Worth, who found on his arrival in Raleigh that General Sherman was gone, and General Schofield was in command, who refused to allow Governor Vance to return at all.

The Governor then remained quietly in Greensboro until Schofield's arrival there, when he had an interview with him, giving him necessary information as to State property, records, etc., etc., and bespeaking his protection for them and for our people, especially in those localities where they were at feud with each other. He then tendered his own surrender, which General Schofield refused to accept, saying he had no orders to arrest him, and he might go where he pleased. Governor Vance then told him he would join his family at Statesville, and would be found there if requisition should be made for him. He arrived in Statesville, rejoining his family on the fourth of May--by a curious coincidence, the very day on which, four years before, he had left them, a volunteer for the war! And four such years!--sketched for us thirty years ago in that sublime and solemn picture upon the canvas of Webster, where lay a land rent with civil feuds, and drenched in fraternal blood. He remained until the thirteenth, when he was arrested by order of the Federal Government, by Major Porter, commanding a detachment of three hundred cavalry, Ninth Pennsylvania, conveyed a prisoner to Raleigh, and thence to the Old Capitol Prison at Washington City.

On the thirteenth of April, General Sherman entered Raleigh. The day before, General Stoneman had occupied Salisbury. He entered the State from Knoxville, Tenn., taking most of the towns in his way, and committing an immense amount of damage, and finally arriving in Salisbury just in time to destroy utterly all the valuable State and Confederate property which had been so sedulously conveyed from Raleigh, to escape General Sherman! The particulars of this important and successful move I have as yet been unable to procure. I hope, however, to present them at some time in a detailed and authentic narrative. The coöperation with Sherman was timely, and would have been a perfect success if Stoneman had ventured to hold Salisbury. He might easily have done so, though, to be sure, he did not know that; but if he had, he might have given checkmate to the Confederacy at once. President Davis would never have reached Charlotte. As it was, the raiders from Stoneman's command, who cut the Danville road above Greensboro, were within half an hour of capturing the whole Confederate Government in its flight.

During the occupation of Chapel Hill by Kilpatrick's cavalry, the citizens of the place possessed their souls in as much patience as they could muster up, endeavoring to arrive at a stoical not to say philosophical frame of mind, in view of the sudden dislocation of all things--among other things, maintaining a decent degree of composure upon the establishment of Liberia in our midst, and accommodating ourselves to this new phase of things with a good deal of grim humor. The negroes, however, behaved much better, on the whole, than Northern letter-writers represent them to have done. Indeed, I do not know a race more studiously misrepresented than they have been and are at this present time. They behaved well during the war: if they had not, it could not have lasted eighteen months. They showed a fidelity and a steadiness which speaks not only well for themselves but well for their training and the system under which they lived. And when their liberators arrived, there was no indecent excitement on receiving the gift of liberty, nor displays of impertinence to their masters. In one or two instances they gave "Missus" to understand that they desired present payment for their services in gold and silver, but, in general, the tide of domestic life flowed on externally as smoothly as ever. In fact, though of course few at the North will believe me, I am sure that they felt for their masters, and secretly sympathized with their ruin. They knew that they were absolutely penniless and conquered; and though they were glad to be free, yet they did not turn round, as New-England letter-writers have represented, to exult over their owners, nor exhibit the least trace of New-England malignity. So the bread was baked in those latter days, the clothes were washed and ironed, and the baby was nursed as zealously as ever, though both parties understood at once that the service was voluntary. The Federal soldiers sat a good deal in the kitchens; but the division being chiefly composed of North-western men, who had little love for the negro, (indeed I heard some d----n him as the cause of the war, and say that they would much rather put a bullet through an abolitionist than through a Confederate soldier,) there was probably very little incendiary talk and instructions going on. In all which, in comparison with other localities, we were much favored.

So we endeavored to play out the play with dignity and self-possession, watching the long train of foragers coming in every day by every high-road and by-way leading from the country, laden with the substance of our friends and neighbors for many miles, (though in many cases, let me say, the Government made payment for food and forage taken after peace was declared,) watching them with such feelings as made us half ashamed of our own immunity, wondering where it would all end, and that we should have lived to see such a day; reviewing the height from which we had fallen, and struggling, I say, to wear a look of proud composure, when all our assumed stoicism and resignation was put to flight by the appearance, on a certain day, of a squad of unarmed men in gray, dusty and haggard, walking slowly along the road. A moment's look, a hasty inquiry, and "_Lee's men!_" burst from our lips, and tears from our eyes. There they were, the heroes of the army of Virginia, walking home, each with _his pass_ in his pocket, and nothing else. To run after them, to call them in, to feel honored at shaking those rough hands, to spread the table for them, to cry over them, and say again and again, "God bless you all; we are just as proud of you, and thank you just as much as if it had turned out differently;" this was a work which stirred our inmost souls, and has left a tender memory which will outlast life. Day after day we saw them, sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes in little companies, making the best of their way toward their distant homes, penniless and dependent on wayside charity for their food, plodding along, while the blue jackets pranced gayly past on the best blood of Southern stables. But I am glad to record that wherever a Federal soldier met any of them, he was prompt to offer help and food, and express a kindly and soldierly cordiality. Grant's men, they all said, had been especially generous. There was something worth studying in the air and expression of these men, a something which had a beneficial and soothing effect on the observers. They were not unduly cast down, nor had any appearance of the humiliation that was burning into our souls. They were serious, calm, and self-possessed. They said they were satisfied that all had been done that could be done, and they seemed to be sustained by the sense of duty done and well done, and the event left to God, and with His award they had no intention of quarreling. It was a fair fight, they said, but the South had been starved out; one dark-eyed young South-Carolinian said, for his part he was going home to settle down, and if any body ever said "secesh" to him again, he meant to knock 'em over. Many looked thin and feeble; and a gallant major from Fayetteville told me himself that when ordered to the last charge, he and his men, who had been living for some days on parched corn, were so weak that they reeled in their saddles. "But we would have gone again," he added, "if Lee had said so."

The news of the death of President Lincoln, received at first with utter incredulity, deepened the gloom and horrible uncertainty in which we lived. That he was dead simply may not have excited any regret among people who for four years had been learning to regard him as the prime agent in all our troubles. But when the time, place, and manner of his death came to be told, an unaffected and deep horror and dismay filled our minds. The time has not yet come for Southern people to estimate President Lincoln fairly. We never could admire him as he appeared as a candidate for the Presidency, nor look upon him as a great man, in any sense of the word. But even if we had recognized him as a lofty and commanding genius, fit to guide the destiny of a great nation through a crisis of imminent peril, the smoke of the battle-fields would have obscured to us all his good qualities, and we should have regarded him only as the malignant star, whose ascendency boded nothing but evil to us. He was always presented to us in caricature. The Southern press never mentioned him but with some added _sobriquet_ of contempt and hatred. His simplicity of character and kindliness of heart we knew nothing of; nor would many now at the South, much as they may deplore his death, concede to him the possession of any such virtues. They judged him by the party which took possession of him after his inauguration, and by his advisers. But a sense of remorse fills my mind now as I write of him, realizing how much that was really good and guileless, and well-intentioned and generous, may have come to an untimely end in the atrocious tragedy at Ford's Theatre. The extravagance of eulogy by which the Northern people have sought to express their sense of his worth and of his loss, has had much to do with our unwillingness to judge him fairly. To place the Illinois lawyer by the side of Washington would have been an offense against taste and common-sense; but to compare him to the SON OF GOD, to ascribe to him also the work of "dying the just for the unjust," is an impious indecency which may suit the latitude of Mr. Bancroft, and the overstrained tone of the Northern mind generally, but whose only effect at the South is to widen the distance between us and the day when we shall frankly endeavor to understand and do justice to President Lincoln.