The Last Ditch

Reconstructed Rebel

1st Lieutenant
Joined
Jun 7, 2021
How did smaller individual commands, that were not with Lee at Appomattox, respond to the news of his surrender? Can anyone offer more first person examples? I found this account by General Basil Duke, published in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, https://ehistory.osu.edu/books/battles/vol4/762
Based on "The Century war series" published from Nov. 1884 to Nov. 1887 in the Century magazine and edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel of the editorial staff of "The Century Magazine"

..."The command had halted for the night ; General Echols and I were dismounted and standing upon the turnpike surrounded by the soldiers. Just then Lieutenant James B. Clay, who had been sent ahead three days before to gain information, galloped up and handed General Echols a dispatch.
The latter's face flushed, and then grew deadly pale. The dispatch was from General Lomax, and in these words : " General Lee surrendered this morning at or near Appomattox Court House. I am trying with my own division and the remnants of Fitz Lee's and Rosser's divisions to arrange to make a junction with you."
After a brief conference we agreed that the news should be concealed from the men until the next day, if possible, and communicated that night only to the brigade and regimental commanders. We hoped that some plan might be devised which would enable us to hold the troops together until we could learn what policy would be pursued by Mr. Davis, and whether it would be our duty to endeavor to join General (Lomax?) ... Before we had concluded our brief conversation, we knew from the hum and stir in the anxious, dark-browed crowds nearest us, from excitement which soon grew almost to tumult, that the terrible tidings had gotten abroad. That night no man slept. Strange as the declaration may sound now, there was not one of the six or seven thousand then gathered at Christiansburg who had entertained the slightest thought that such an event could happen, and. doubtless that feeling pervaded the ranks of the Confederacy....
...On the next day General Echols convened a council of war composed of his brigade commanders. He proposed that the men of the infantry commands should be furloughed for sixty days, at the expiration of which time, if the Confederacy survived, they might possibly be returned to the service. The infantry commanders approved of this policy, and it was adopted. General Echols then requested the officers commanding the cavalry brigades to give expression to their views. General Cosby and Colonel Giltner frankly declared their conviction that further resistance was impossible, and that it was their duty to lose no time in making the best terms possible for their men....

...General Breckinridge requested Colonel W. C. P. Breckinridge and myself to hold a body of our men together for two or three days, and, marching in a direction different from that Mr. Davis had taken, divert attention as from his movements. (2) We accordingly marched with 350 men of our respective brigades toward Woodstock, or Woodville, -I do not certainly remember the name. I moved upon one road; Colonel Breckinridge, with whom the general was, upon another. We were to meet at the point I have mentioned. I arrived first, and halted to await the others. I found that a considerable force of Federal cavalry was just to the west of the place, and not more than three miles distant. The officer in command notified me in very courteous terms that he would not attack unless I proceeded toward the west, in which event he said he would, very much to his regret, be compelled " to use violence." He said that he hoped I would think proper to surrender, as further bloodshed was useless and wrong; but that he would not undertake to hasten the matter. I responded that I appreciated his sentiments and situation, and that I would give the matter of surrender immediate and careful consideration. That evening Colonel Breckinridge arrived. He had encountered a body of Federals, who had made to him almost the identical statement the officer in my front had addressed to me. He had parleyed with them long enough to enable General Breckinridge, with one or two officers who were to accompany him in his effort to escape, to get far enough away to elude pursuit,(3) and then, telling them where ho wished to go, was allowed to march by upon the same road occupied by the Federal column. The men of the previously hostile hosts cheered each other as they passed, and the " Yanks" shouted, "You rebs better go home and stop this nonsense; we don't want to hurt each other !" The colonel brought an earnest injunction from General Breckinridge that we should both surrender without delay. We communicated his message to our comrades, and for us the long agony was over.(4)
 
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