Personal Recollections of Sherman's Campaigns in Georgia and the Carolinas

by George W Pepper

  As yet we can scarcely realize the change. But yesterday “grim visaged War “frowned terribly and deadly upon us; today the bright and cheering smiles of eace are gladdening our souls with strange delicious sensations. May she ever smile upon our again united, happy, and prosperous people!

  CHAPTER XXII.

  The Conference between Johnston and Sherman. — The Rebellion Collapsing. — An Eye-Witness Describes how Breckenridge and Johnston looked during the Conference.

  THE PEACE CONFERENCE.

  Peace and reunion, an undivided continent, and regenerated liberty! Such, at last, is my greeting. Sherman has met Johnston and Breckenridge in person. Pens, not swords were the weapons employed, and again, once for all, victory remains with the 'Invincible.

  At this memorable conference, your correspondent with the cavalry, had the peculiar fortune to be present, and as he was the only correspondent present, his must be the only direct testimony as to the incidents of the meeting.

  As all the interest of the entire pursuit, from the battle-flags of Bentonville up to the peace-flags of Durham, has centered with the cavalry, I shall resume my connected account, (presuming you to have received my former dispatch,) beginning where I left off on the morning of the 14th, when our skirmish lines had been checked by General Sherman's order to await the plan by which the army of Johnston, now so closely pressed, was to be intercepted and cut off from retreat.

  The plan was as follows:

  Head-Quarters Military Division of the Miss.,

  In the Field, Raleigh, N. C

  April 14, '65.

  Special Field Orders No. 55.

  The next movement will be on Ashboro, to turn the position of the enemy at the Company's Shops, in the rear of Haw Run Bridge, and at Greensboro, and cut off his only available line of retreat by Salisbury and Charlotte.

  I. General Kilpatrick will keep up a show of pursuit in the direction of Hillsboro and Graham, but be ready to cross the Haw River, on General Howard's bridges near Pittsboro, and thence will operate toward Greensboro, on the right front of the right wing.

  II. The right wing, Major General Howard commanding, will move out on the Chapel Hill Road, and send a light division in in the direction of Chapel Hill University, in connection with the cavalry, but the main columns and trains will move via Hackney's Cross roads and Trade's Hill, Pittsboro, Saint Lawrence, &c, to be followed by the cavalry and light division, as soon as the bridge is laid over the Haw River.

  III. The center, Major General Schofield commanding, will move via Holly Springs, New Hill, Haywood and Eoffiitt's Mills.

  IV. The left wing, Major General Slocum commanding, will move rapidly by the Ayer's Ferry Road, Carthage, Caledonia and Cox's Mills.

  All the troops will draw well out on the roads designated, during today and tomorrow, and on the following day will move with all possible rapidity to Ashboro, No further destruction of railroads, mills, cotton or produce, will be made without specific order of an army commander, and the inhabitants will be dealt with kindly, looking to an early reconciliation except in cases where hostility is manifested. The troops will be permitted to go gather forage and provisions as heretofore, Only more care should be taken not to strip the poorer classes too closely,

  By order of

  Major General W. T. SHERMAN.

  L. M. Dayton, Assistant Adjutant General.

  During the day (Friday, April 14,) a letter, received under flag of truce, from Major McClellan, Assistant Adjutant General to Lieutenant General Wade Hampton, and directed to Major General W. T. Sherman!

  Was forwarded to Raleigh by Brevet Major General J, Kilpatrick, whose headquarters were then upon the Chapel Hill Road, twelve miles distant from the capital.

  The next morning, before day light, a dispatch from Major General Sherman arrived, inclosing a letter directed to General Johnston, which, it was significantly intimated in the accompanying note to Kilpatrick, related to "the beginning of the end."

  General Kilpatrick then sent a truce letter by Lieutenant Colonel Godfrey, of the first Alabama Cavalry, to General Hampton, saying that during the pending of important correspondence between their chiefs, he in accordance with his instructions, should advance his force to Chapel Hill, but meanwhile would himself be upon the Hillsboro Road, on which, unless opposed, he should not attack, but should hold it sacred to the correspondence. General Hampton replied acquiescing, and thus the Hillsboro Road became the highway of truce.

  Captain Day, of Kilpatrick's staff v (Provost Marshal), was their sent with General Sherman's letter in reply to General Johnston, which was received by Captain Loundes, Assistant Adjutant General, of General Wade Hampton's staff. Reply was made that an answer from General Johnston could not be returned before four o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. On the 16th a train came from Raleigh to Kilpatrick's headquarters, at Durham, repairing the telegraph on the way, with Charles Eddy, General Sherman's telegrapher aboard, in preparation for the answer from General Johnston, to be forwarded by telegraph to General Sherman — reply to be returned the same way. Captain Hayes, of Kilpatrick's staff, being dispatched to the picket line at the time appointed, about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, returned with the following communication from Lieutenant General Wade Hampton, to Brevet Major General Judson Kilpatrick,

  Headquarters, April 16, 1865.

  General — the general commanding directs me to arrange for a meeting between himself and Major General Sherman. In accordance with these instructions, I beg to inquire when and where this meeting can most conveniently be had. I suggest ten o'clock A. M., tomorrow, as the time, and a point on the Hillsboro Road, equidistant from the pickets of your command and my own, as the place for the proposed meeting

  I am respectfully yours,

  WADE HAMPTON, Lieutenant General.

  Major General J. Kilpatrick, U. S. A.

  This communication having been forwarded, the following was returned:

  I have just received and read your communication from Lieutenant General Wade Hampton, proposing a meeting between General Johnson and myself, at ten A, M. tomorrow. You can make all necessary arrangements with General Hampton for the proposed meeting. You had better defer the meeting till 12 o'clock, M. Also say to General Hampton that I should be pleased to see Generals Hardee und Bragg.

  W. T. SHERMAN.

  At 10:50 A. M., on the 17th instant., the train (two passenger cars, marked Raleigh and Gaston), arrived at Durham, with Major General Sherman and his staff Major General Barry, thief of Artillery; Colonel Poe, Chief Engineer; Colonel Gaston, Chief Quartermaster; Major Day toil, Assistant Adjutant General; Major Andenreid, Major Nichols, Major McCoy, Captain Bachtill and Lieutenant Howard. The General and his staff were received by Kilpatrick and conducted to his headquarters, while horses were being saddled.

  At twenty minutes past 11 o'clock, A. M., the party set out — the two commanders, with their staffs, and an escort of two hundred men, accompanied by Colonel Curwin, of the 13th Pennsylvania Cavalry, commanding Kilpatrick's 3d Brigade.

  The place of conference was "a convenient house half was between picket lines," and General Johnston and Lieutenant ( General Hampton — neither Hardee nor Bragg being present — were found at the house of one James Bennet, some three and a half miles from Durham. Of General Johnston's staff, but one officer was present, a son of Wade Hampton. Of Hampton's staff were present a Major, Chief of Artillery, Major McClellan, and Captain Loundes, Assistant Adjutant General. Colonel Waring, of Cobb's Legion, commanding a brigade, was also present in charge of the escort.

  Johnston and Sherman retired into the house together. Wade Hampton and his son, of Johnston's staff, reclined upon an old work-bench in the yard, the other rebel officer? About them, they were well-dressed — indeed, dirty and villainous as the dress of the rebel private looks — sufficient blue mixed with the gray, together with lace, stars and cuffs, make a rebel officer's appearance respectable. In addition, they were rather fine-looking fellows. Wade Hampton
, though very slightly round-shouldered, is tall and broad-shouldered. Enough for figure, and his flush face is set off with a magnificent brown moustache and beard. His eyebrows, though very heavy, and regular enough to indicate good nature, only contracted over his nose by reason of his education, but he has an ugly habit of striking, and at the same time spasmodically knitting his forehead. His son's face pleased me better. Of his staff, I liked best the look of Captain Loundes, who, together with Colonel Waring — a very wide awake and withy little officer — like sensible gentlemen, for the occasion at least, appropriately put aside hostility and reserve, and partook of the courtesies of conference.

  I can not wonder at the bitterness displayed by Hampton in reply to Kilpatrick's kindly-intended advances. Slavery was his nurse, from whose black dugs he has imbibed the poison to adulterate a generous and noble nature. Alas, that such spirits have been taught to call evil, good, and good, evil. It was his own crime that recoiled upon him, in the devastation of his own home. What can be done with such? The occasion was a conference upon the subject of the surrender of his army — his cause having been already rendered hopeless by fate, and the unavoidable submission of Lee. “Yet," said he to Kilpatrick, "had I the writing of the terms of agreement, they should never be written, and"— (here there was a chance interruption, which continued long enough for him to have lost the thread of his remark, had he not clutched it just before its close), " I never could bring myself to live again with a people that have waged war as you have done." Our fiery cavalryman restrained himself to a simple allusion to the burning of Chambersburg, adding that the ruthless pillaging, and occasional darker outrages, were the unavoidable incidents of every invasion; that the predatory bitterness of Sherman's expedition was retaliatory. Hampton replied to the effect that he, too, had now learned the lesson, and should practice it on every occasion, Kilpatrick answered that he would not go out of his way to seek the chances, but would improve them as they were met. Hampton returned that he would look to opportunities. Kilpatrick curtly said he thought his own party were likely to do most of the burning now. It is due to Hampton, to say that his men are reputed to be under better discipline than "Wheeler's. He denied that he was at all to blame for the firing upon Kilpatrick's advance into Raleigh, the other day. He had given strict injunctions that all his guard should be withdrawn in season, subject to the Mayor's surrender of the place. One remark of his, though, was very significant, as showing the feud already developing between the defeated and disappointed confederate soldier and the abused, plundered and repentant citizen. He claimed that the engine intercepted, together with the peace commissioners, by Kilpatrick, should have been allowed to pass back to Raleigh, as he had requested, he himself having first placed himself in their path to prevent a conference with Sherman. Kilpatrick judiciously answered that he had determined that confederate soldiers should not interfere with the citizens, in their laudable designs of communicating with an army whose office and purpose is the restoration of peace and social reconstruction, adding, casually, that the engine and train, which it would have been poor policy for him, under the circumstances, to have passed to Raleigh, only to be run off or disabled by the enemy, was a lawful capture, as, though it had. Truce flags flying, he was forced to fire on it to bring it to a halt. Then Hampton, with insidious and ominous bitterness, replied to the effect that it was a matter of perfect indifference to him, how much stick men as the Raleigh commissioners were fired upon; evidently implying that he despised the peaceful and public-spirited citizens, who refused, in the face of despair, maddened with frenzy like his own, any longer to countenance the utter ruin of the people, displaying An abandoned recklessness of the sufferings of those whom he had been professing to regard as his own kinsmen, that, to say the least, from the lips of a pumped figure, gorgeously bedecked with the spoils of the poor whom he had robbed and oppressed, and declared himself still resolved to rule with the brand of marauding ruin, looked like the most selfish and disgraceful, brutality. Where is the bread for the helpless widows and orphans made by him? Wade Hampton's maw fattens with it a vagabond and brigand appetite; and the very last stitch of covering for the nakedness first wrought by his own insatiableness, himself at the last niche of wretchedness, twines in gold wreaths, silk cuffs, tassels and gew-gaws upon his oafish person. His words are full of loathsome meaning to me.

  Confidentially informed, just before setting out to the conference, of the assassination of our beloved President by a fanaticism not merely akin to, but incited by, such men as Hampton, I tell you, such impolitic, outspoken “roughs as Wade Hampton tell the bitter truth when they say the same land can not contain two an antagonisms. There is nothing for it but to hang or expatriate all such reprobate spawn still remaining of the exorcised "sum of villainies."

  About 2| o'clock in the afternoon, the chiefs issued from the house together, General Johnston, venerable with intermingled gray, in close-cropped hair and beard, lifted his hat continually to the officers in blue, who admired his military bearing, with coat closely buttoned to his chin. For my part, I thought our own chieftain, ugly as he is called, a far better-looking man, taller, younger, and more commanding. At the word "to horse," the parties separated and the day's conference was ended.

  "What was the result?" each inquired of the other, returning; for nothing could be gathered from the secret face of Sherman. In the evening, however, it transpired that the conference was continued to the following day, Johnston owning that, while he was himself prepared for surrender, he could not vouch for the obedience of his infatuated command. Accordingly, he should meanwhile submit to Davis and Breckinridge (who are supposed to be at Goldsboro), the following proposition from Sherman : A complete surrender, by State authority, of all right and claim of the so-called Southern confederacy, to the United States, which would itself assume the responsibility of taking care of the recusant rebel chiefs.

  Sherman informed Johnson of the assassination of the President, who expressed great and sincere regret, acknowledging that nothing, just at this juncture, could have happened so deplorable. Sherman told him at once to notify his army of the event, at the same time publicly disclaiming any sympathy whatever with the deed, or he could not answer, if the contrary was suspected, for the forbearance of his own command.

  Upon his return to Raleigh, the same evening, Sherman published Secretary Stanton's dispatch, informing him of the most awful tragedy in the nation's annals, together with the following order, which, with the Secretary's letter, appeared in the Raleigh papers — Standard and Progress — and were brought out by the train in the morning :

  Head-Quarters Military Pivision of

  In the Field, Raleigh, N. C.,

  April 17, 1865.

  General Order. No. 50

  The general commanding announces with pain and sorrow that on the evening of the 14th instant, at the theater, in Washington City, his Excellency, the President of the United States, Mr. Lincoln, was assassinated by one who uttered the State motto of Virginia. At the same time, the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, while suffering from a broken arm, was stabbed by another murderer in his own house, but still survives, and his son was wounded, supposed fatally.

  It is believed, by persons capable of judging, that other high officers were designed to share the same fate. Thus it seems that our enemy, despairing of meeting us in manly warfare, begins to resort to the assassin's tools. Your General does not wish you to infer that this is universal, for he knows that the great mass of the confederate army would scorn to sanction such acts; but he believes it the legitimate consequence of rebellion against rightful authority. We have met every phase which this war has assumed, and must now be prepared for it in its last and worst shape— that of assassins and guerrillas; but woe unto the people who seek to expend their wild passions in such a manner, for there is but one dread result. By order of

  Major General W. T. SHERMAN.

  L. M, Dayton, Major and A. A. G.

  Together with the dispatch i
nforming him of the murder of the President, General Sherman received another accompanying from the Secretary of War, quite as startling, that the deed was planned in Paris by a conspiracy, thus to cut off every prominent member of the Government, and that certain of the conspirators had already set out from New York to his army, and "are doubtless even now in your midst. I beseech you to beware, and heed that warning which the President neglected."

  This letter contained a description of one of the conspirators; it is to be hoped sufficiently accurate to identify him. Detectives are on the track.

  The next morning the 18th, as bright and propitious as the preceding, smiled upon the continued conference. About the same hour, the train brought back our chieftain to a second and final meeting with the loaders of the Southern confederacy. General Sherman was received with that grace which belongs to our brave young cavalryman, Kilpatrick, who again conducted the distinguished General to his flag draped quarters — the house of Dr. Blackwell — the flags, rebel captures, surrendered to Kilpatrick at Raleigh. While the chief rested, and his horse was being saddled, the band of the 3d Kentucky loaded the breeze with those strains that, like Tennyson's voice by the cedar tree, seem ever to chant only of martial death and honor that can not die.

  An escort of two hundred men picked from the 8th Indiana, carried sabres, in two ranks, facing between headquarters and the railroad. Behind them, and on the opposite side of the track, thronging the fences, climbing every lookout, pressed, the gay and dashing cavalrymen, to view the scene, and catch a glimpse of the grim Sherman, delighted to witness his marks of regard toward their own favorite leader, the bold young raider, whose signal enterprise was now reaping just reward; thus made host of the ceremonies of truce, toward the hastening on of which, his own vigor had not failed to contribute. The word is given to mount, and the General seats himself upon a white charger without belt, sabre or pistol — an old, low-crowned, round-topped, faded, black felt hat, clapped close upon his head -—for all the world (except for his coat, which lay back in the breeze in very irregular abandon of its buttons), as if setting out once more "on circuit" from his law office at Leavenworth, to patch up some exceedingly aggravated divorce case Kilpatrick rode beside him, upon a mottled brown steed, himself belted, sashed, and sabred, the handsomest figure on the field. “Pregent sabers” was the order to the escort as the General parsed through with uncovered head, and soon the whole party are upon the road.