The Final Bivouac

[NH Civil War Gal]

Due to an emergency, Burt Dunkerly can't be with us this Wednesday, April 9th. This CWT Presents is postponed to a later date, when we will welcome him back to talk to us about "The Final Bivouac"

I have this book and it is very good. It covers the "The Confederate Surrender Parade at Appomattox and the Disbanding of the Virginia Armies, April 10 - May 20, 1865"

I've been to Appomattox and have been overwhelmed by the peacefulness of the place now. But no one wants to be the last person to die before the end of war.

General John Gibbon, one of the commissioners appointed to "carry into the effect the stipulation" of the surrender observed: "No mere man of peace can realize the relief we experienced on awaking [on the 10th], at the thought that we were lying between the picket lines of two rest armies without the slightest prospect of having to engage in a fight."

At the beginning of this book, it talks about Grant releasing rations to the Confederate armies and the soldiers eating them. As hungry as they were, some find that they want them, but just can't eat them right away, that's how malnutritioned (though that word wasn't in use then) they were.

If you were tuned in to our last CivilWarTalk Presents with Michael Hardy's book, "Feeding Lee's Army of Northern Virginia," you learn (or will learn in more detail if you buy the book!) that the average Confederate fighting soldier needed 5,000 calories a day. At the end, at Appomattox they were only getting 500 calories a day. So a sudden release of food on them was a good thing but also a hard thing on their bodies.

Interesting, the Army of the James, like the V Corps, was short of rations at Appomattox. A soldier of the 11th Maine recalled, "We were left for about five days with scarcely anything to eat. As a consequence we named the place "Hungry Hollow", instead of Appomattox or Clover Hill as we first called it."

And here is an interesting variation of a soldier's spelling of Appomattox - "APAMATICKS COURTHOUSE, VA"!

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

CWT Presents - RESCHEDULED: Bert Dunkerly on "The Final Bivouac: The Confederate Surrender Parade at Appomattox and the Disbanding of the Virginia Armies" | Calendar Threads

EDIT TO ADD: Unfortunately, Bert has a family emergency that prevents him providing the program on Wednesday, April 9th. We'll get him rescheduled for a later date when we can. My apologies for the cancellation. On April 30, we will host Wade Sokolosky author of North Carolina's Confederate...

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I have this book and it is very good. It covers the "The Confederate Surrender Parade at Appomattox and the Disbanding of the Virginia Armies, April 10 - May 20, 1865"

I've been to Appomattox and have been overwhelmed by the peacefulness of the place now. But no one wants to be the last person to die before the end of war.

General John Gibbon, one of the commissioners appointed to "carry into the effect the stipulation" of the surrender observed: "No mere man of peace can realize the relief we experienced on awaking [on the 10th], at the thought that we were lying between the picket lines of two rest armies without the slightest prospect of having to engage in a fight."

At the beginning of this book, it talks about Grant releasing rations to the Confederate armies and the soldiers eating them. As hungry as they were, some find that they want them, but just can't eat them right away, that's how malnutritioned (though that word wasn't in use then) they were.

If you were tuned in to our last CivilWarTalk Presents with Michael Hardy's book, "Feeding Lee's Army of Northern Virginia," you learn (or will learn in more detail if you buy the book!) that the average Confederate fighting soldier needed 5,000 calories a day. At the end, at Appomattox they were only getting 500 calories a day. So a sudden release of food on them was a good thing but also a hard thing on their bodies.

Interesting, the Army of the James, like the V Corps, was short of rations at Appomattox. A soldier of the 11th Maine recalled, "We were left for about five days with scarcely anything to eat. As a consequence we named the place "Hungry Hollow", instead of Appomattox or Clover Hill as we first called it."

And here is an interesting variation of a soldier's spelling of Appomattox - "APAMATICKS COURTHOUSE, VA"!

Please join us this Wednesday night and hear Bert Dunkerly talk about "The Final Bivouac"

Thanks for the information. I always wondered how the Union army had enough rations, considering what they had experienced over the past few days and how fast they moved, to offer so many rations to Lee's army. Thanks to your post, I learned that some elements of the Union army WERE short on rations.

 

[Lampasas Bill]

I don't remember where I read this story, but it's worth repeating: After the surrender, a Union soldier was sharing his rations with a poorly-fed Confederate. He fried up some pork and crackers which were greatly appreciated then boiled a cup of coffee for his guest. The Southerner hadn't tasted the real thing for a considerable time, and after savoring it, looked up at his host and remarked, "son, If we'd had coffee like that we could have beaten ya'll with sticks!"

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

This is interesting! It is April 12th and John Smith of the 118th Penns. Records "There was a soldier drummed around camp for cowardice, with the word "coward" on a cracker box lid hanging in front of his breast, and "skulk" on another board on his back. Thousands of soldiers and Rebs looked on."

Makes you wonder what the heck went on there! There is more to this little story for sure!

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

Interesting little story about General Wise. He's telling Chamberlain how "we hate you, and that is the whole of it."

He did not reconcile with the surrender at Appomattox and unlike the other CSA officers speaking freely of the humiliation they felt, the generosity of Grant's terms, how the were treated, etc., Wise stood off like "a withered old crab-apple tree" with tobacco juice trinkling from his mouth."

Anyway, General Lee apparently hear of this encounter (there is a lot more to it, it's in the book) and as Lee was departing the area told General Wise "that as he was particularly obnoxious to the Federal authorities, he was liberty to look out for himself if he so desired."

So Lee was done too.

There is another description in a footnote that says from a contemporary, "Wise looked as though he had been rolled in mud all the way from Petersburg."

Certainly Wise had tragedy in his life but so did a lot of the regular soldiers, never mind other officers and they didn't act like that.

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

One Confederate came into the V Corps lines with a distinctive purpose:

The day after the surrender General Henry A. Wise sent his aide, Lieutenant Charles J. Faulkner, to General Chamberlain, commanding our brigade, informing him he was anxious to leave….Lt. George W. Williams [aide on Gen. Chamberlain's staff] was sent to examine his baggage, consisting of two trunks, at the hotel; some pistol cartridges were found, which he was told to keep as he might want to forage on the way home. At the bottom of [the] trunk was found a handsome silk flag. General Wise remarked it had been presented to his regiment by the ladies of Richmond… Williams said: "General, no doubt you have the usual promise to shed the last drop of blood in your regiment to preserve this flag; as it is without spot or blemish, it would be out of place with those scarred and stained battle-flags surrendered yesterday, and I doubt whether any other Yank has ever had the opportunity of seeing it; you had better return it."

 

[CWdiaryPA]

I've occasionally wondered if any of those Confederates died of refeeding syndrome, or whatever it's called, when you're supposed to carefully titrate your food rather than gorge if you've been starving, like how they had to coming out of the WW2 camps , learning the hard way. Thank you for the recommendation, NH.

Edit to add: the Union Army was definitely short on food at times throughout the war. My gfather wrote of having nothing to eat at various points from March '62--June '62, fyi.

 

[Reconstructed Rebel]

I've occasionally wondered if any of those Confederates died of refeeding syndrome, or whatever it's called, when you're supposed to carefully titrate your food rather than gorge if you've been starving, like how they had to coming out of the WW2 camps , learning the hard way. Thank you for the recommendation, NH.

Edit to add: the Union Army was definitely short on food at times throughout the war. My gfather wrote of having nothing to eat at various points from March '62--June '62, fyi.

Seems like the medical community was aware of the dangers of overeating when recovering from starvation - here is a quote from a Union officer who was exchanged in March of 1865:

Arriving at Wilmington, we were collected together and rations were served. Here we were placed under guard to prevent our eating too much, but we would capture the rations each side of us and fill our pockets. As soon as we had eaten all we could, we would pass out, and in half an hour try to flank in again. The sanitary commission were on hand with barrels of weak milk punch and gave us all we wanted ; as we wanted everything to eat or drink that we saw we destroyed large quantities of it.

Source: page 181

Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts regiment : Adams, John G. B. (John Gregory Bishop), 1841-1900 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

viii, 186 p. 23 cm

archive.org