Grant Before Appomattox: Notes of a Confederate Bishop

ON the morning of the 12th [November 1864], we found ourselves at Kingston, and I learned that General Sherman was there. An hour before day I set out in search of him, and walked into his quarters. I found sitting by a fire General Barry, his chief of artillery,♦ who knew me. He carried me in to General Sherman, who was just finishing his toilet.

General Sherman was as polite as hitherto, but seemed embarrassed to know what to do with me. He would commence his march into Georgia in two hours. The bridges were destroyed already on the road to Atlanta. He might perhaps send me to Jonesboro or to Palmetto. At his invitation I went for my baggage and returned to breakfast.

As soon as I came back, he proposed to me that he would send me through the lines at Richmond. I readily assented, as it suited me well; and seeing that, although he had ‘presumed on my character to observe the war secrecy,’ he did not wish to send me in advance of his columns, I introduced the topic and said that I preferred to go by a route not liable to that objection. He replied that he did not doubt me at all, yet it would be very difficult for me to speak of my travel at all without letting fall something liable to be used to his prejudice.

‘So, General,’ I said, ‘you are off for a flight into the air! I confess it has surprised me.’ ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Because I saw your mules in Atlanta.’ ‘What have you to say against my mules?’ ‘Only that they were too poor to pull the wagons.’ He said I was mistaken: they were gaunt for want of long forage, but never lacked corn; besides, they would soon fatten in the Southern cornfields.

I believe it will be found that his mules are very poor; and further, that a very considerable proportion of his force are not veterans, but newly drafted men.

General Sherman was in high spirits and very talkative. ‘Hood’s movement to Blue Mountain was an admirable one if he had stopped there — but when he went further he uncovered the very vitals of his country. I am about to take advantage of his mistake and to carry fire and sword for two hundred miles into Georgia. His error was excusable; it seems impossible for you all to appreciate our numbers. He does not know what an army Thomas has.’

The common report was that Sherman took 40,000 with him, leaving General Thomas 75,000.

He spoke of Thomas in high terms, especially as a safe man; whatever he entrusted to him he knew would be done right. ‘What sort of person is General Stanley?’ I asked. ‘In what respect?’ ‘Is he a man of dash and energy?’ ‘No — if he had possessed energy and activity when I sent him to Hardee’s rear at Jonesboro, I should have captured the whole corps.’

He seemed to be nerving himself for what he was about to do in Georgia. He had studied the map for years. It was impossible to divide this country by a line drawn east and west; if the division proposed had been a line drawn north and south, that would have been a different matter. Two nations could not exist on this continent except in a state of perpetual war.

As for slavery, it was a matter to which he was indifferent. We might make any arrangement we desired, if only it could consist with social order and the supremacy of law.

At one time he had invited a conference with the citizens of Memphis. They asked him what he would do with slavery. His reply was nothing, if he could help it.

There were several ways in which the slaves might be disposed of. He described the country on both sides of the Mississippi from Vicksburg up to Memphis. Why not settle them all in that region to themselves?

I smiled at this, and said our people found the Negroes very soon outgrew the plantation. ‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘try this. There are three millions of Negroes. We have eighteen millions of whites, equivalent to three millions of families. Let us distribute them through the whole country, one Negro to each family. If it be argued that some do not want any, I answer that others will want two. I will take five.’

I told him the more I heard of such speculations, the more I was convinced that we might as well seek to make a new channel for the Mississippi as attempt to readjust great providential arrangements.

Something was said about General Price and his popularity with his troops. ‘The true way to be popular with troops,’ he remarked, ‘is not to be free and familiar with them, but to make them believe you know more than they do. My men believe I know everything; they are much mistaken, but it gives them confidence in me.

‘You will find Grant very pleasant. He dispatches business promptly. He will probably, when he sees you, say to a staff officer, “See that Bishop Lay has what he wishes,” and that will be all. He is a man of great tenacity of purpose. It would kill him to retire voluntarily from his position in front of Petersburg. Besides that, he is a good man, a pure man — as pure a man, sir, as General Lee’

He then gave me a new passport in the following terms: —

HEAD QRTS MIL. DIV. OF THE MISS.
IN THE FIELD, KINGSTON, NOV. 11th 1864
Bishop Lay of Arkansas having entered our lines with my authority, and now being prepared to pass out by the route by which he came, it is deemed to the interest of the United States as well as himself that he should re-enter the Confederate lines by a more circuitous route, namely by way of Virginia.
All officers subject to my authority are commanded to afford him free passage and safe conduct to Louisville, whence he is permitted to travel by any of the familiar routes to Baltimore, Old Point Comfort, and if need be to City Point, and the Comg officer at Old Point Comfort is requested to assist the Bishop to enter the Confederate lines in such manner as he may deem proper. If this paper should fall into Genl Grant’s hands, I commend Bishop Lay to his kind attention.
W. T. SHERMAN
WMajor Genl U. S. A.

Between eight and nine o’clock the troops began to move. They were splendidly equipped, with bands playing and colors flying. I observed them from the window with no small pang of sorrow. An officer entering, General Sherman said to me, ‘You will be pleased, I am sure, to see Jeff Davis. This is General Jefferson Davis.’ His ambulance came to the door with four prancing horses, and the orderly stowed the baggage. General Sherman told me he carried little besides his bedding, a box of cigars, and a bottle of brandy. Presently he mounted his horse, rode away attended by his escort, and I saw him no more.

General Barry, with whom I was left, was sick with erysipelas of the head and was on his way to the rear. He was very kind in inviting me to go with him, and during the time we were together was most considerate of me. He had a box car for his own use, with a stove, a large bedstead, and a mattress.

Thus, on the morning of the 12th of November, General Sherman marched from Kingston on his way to lay waste the homes of my people, while I turned my face to pass through the North country.

I have omitted mention of the contempt with which General Sherman spoke of our attempts to cut off his supplies. His arrangements were made upon the supposition that two trains a week would be destroyed by guerillas. While his communications were broken, he had fed his men in Atlanta, diminishing the meat ration one fourth and increasing the bread ration in the same proportion. Other officers and men told me the same thing.

‘It amused me,’ said General Sherman, ‘to read in your papers that some trains have been destroyed and therefore Sherman must fall back. What do I care for the loss of a train? It is a button off my coat.’

We were two days on our way to Nashville. General Barry was sick and so was I. I spent most of the time lying down. On Sunday, while I was reading, General Barry asked me to read a chapter aloud.

Reaching Nashville on the 14th, I was introduced to General Webster, commanding the post. He offered me his own pass to Louisville, which would obviate the necessity of showing my full papers to everybody: this was very considerate. He also gave me a note to the quartermaster in charge of transportation and sent me to him in an ambulance.

This quartermaster was talkative and greatly pleased to see a rebel. Disclaiming any wish to interfere with my political sentiments, he was anxious to impress upon me the wealth and power of his army. He could turn out and put on the road forty box cars and four locomotives per week. He had, in spite of obstructions, sent to the front 30,000 men since the 14th of September.

He urged me to take the river route to Cincinnati as far the safest. I declined, as it would require four days. He then urged me not to take the night train to Louisville; it was almost certain to be fired upon. If I would wait until morning, he would secure me a place in the ladies’ car and I could go safely. I took his advice, and thus on the 15th made an easy trip to Louisville, where the luxury of the Galt House was in striking contrast with the discomforts of the last ten days.

The next morning, after paying a visit to the Reverend Mr. Whittle, I left by steamboat and then came via Zanesville and Harrisburg to Baltimore, reaching the latter place on the 18th. Passes were not required after leaving Louisville.

While on the cars, a gentleman touched me and asked me if I had not been chaplain at General Hood’s headquarters; he then told me he was a surgeon of Cleburne’s Division on his way to be exchanged, and introduced me to another surgeon of Price’s command lately captured in Missouri. We had all heard that Price’s expedition had been disastrous. This man informed me that it was a great success; he had carried out with him 15,000 recruits and supplies of immense value.

My friends in Baltimore were astonished to see me and supposed that I must have been in trouble. I had much interesting talk with them. I reported to the Provost Marshal, and was advised by him to await General Grant’s return from Burlington, whither he had gone to see his family.

Called on Mr. John W. Garrett, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and was interested in his talk. He believed that Lincoln would be glad to make peace on terms very favorable to us. He assured me that Lincoln was really a kind man, much more generous than his advisers. He had seen him at Gettysburg shedding tears over a dying Confederate soldier. He also informed me that the good condition of the Federal finances was largely due to the wonderful development of petroleum, and gave me a striking sketch of the value of that discovery.

I did not see any of the clergy of my former acquaintance; indeed, my arrival in the city was known to very few persons. I never officiated as a clergy [man] in Huntsville or elsewhere within the Yankee lines.

I found very warm-hearted Southern people in Baltimore, and my friends supplied all my wants. However, I brought out little or nothing except some clothes for myself. I told General Sherman I had some letters and a dress for my wife; but he cut me short, remarking that, evil as the times were, he hoped the day would not come when bishops would do anything wrong. My baggage was not so much as glanced at, but I brought only what I could carry in my hands.

General Grant having passed through without stopping, I left Baltimore on the 24th and came via Fortress Monroe to City Point on the 25th. The river was full of war vessels and other shipping.

I found at City Point quite a large hotel, newly built of plank — rough, but passable. After depositing my baggage, I went in search of General Grant.

His headquarters were on the premises of Dr. Eppes, the yard being occupied with neat tents. The adjutant informed me he was at the barber’s shop (he was being shampooed). I sent in my card and after some delay was invited to his tent. This was a canvas stretched over a slight wooden frame, with two doors, a floor, carpet, lounge, and easychair. The furniture came out of Dr. Eppes’s house.

General Grant is a thickset man, five feet eight inches in height. He happened to mention that at West Point he stood next to my brother in the company and incidentally told me his height. He wears all his beard, and his hair was nicely arranged. His complexion florid, but not like that of an intemperate man. His voice and manner pleasant, but partially contradicted by the expression of his face. He looked to me like a man of fierce but smouldering passion, such as craved stimulus and excitement. Resolution and perseverance are evident in his demeanor. He is not easy in manner and does not wear his honors gracefully. Contrary to my expectation, I found him quite loquacious, and a good talker. He smokes without intermission.

After reading my papers he said they were all-sufficient; he would be glad to send me into the Confederate lines and to extend to me all the courtesy that General Sherman could have showed. He inquired about General Sherman and the incidents around Atlanta. Reference was made to the shipment of cotton from Mobile for the relief of Confederate prisoners. He told me he had acquiesced in the arrangement. He was anxious to conduct this war on the highest principles of humanity. Furthermore, neither he nor General Meade had ordered or authorized any damage to private property in Petersburg. They shot at the lines, but gunners would sometimes fire too high and thus it happened that residences were struck.

He offered me his hospitalities while at City Point, which I civilly declined. He then invited me to spend the evening with him, and accordingly I returned after nightfall.

I found with him a colonel of his staff — Roberts, perhaps, who used to be Hardee’s adjutant at West Point.

General Grant excused himself for turning to his table and offered me Richmond’s morning paper.

I collect some items of his talk.

’I wish you would tell your people they utterly misunderstand Mr. Lincoln. He is one of the best men in the world. They think he is revengeful and hates the South. It is not so. I have just left him and conferred freely with him. He would be glad to see the South restored to every right she ever had, with some exceptions in the matter of slavery, and to even a larger measure of influence. Your people do not know that his feelings towards you are all kind and placable.’

‘This is not new to me,’ I said, ‘for others have spoken to the same effect in Baltimore, but you judge aright the impression is very different among our people. If there are such feelings, however, why do you not confer and express them? Mutual explanation and conference must precede peace.’

‘I know that, sir. I have been anxious to see General Lee. I have not thought it well to invite him, but I should be most glad to see him here at City Point and would do everything to make his visit agreeable.’

He said this as something which he wished me to repeat.

‘But besides that,’ I said, ‘the statesmen must end this war. Ought not they to confer?’

‘I should be glad for them to do so. I should be willing for leading men on your side to go almost anywhere — certainly to Fortress Monroe; and I would ensure an interview with any persons they might desire to confer with on our side.’

I here took occasion to repudiate the character of an amateur diplomat, telling him that as a clergyman I confined myself to my proper duties. I spoke only my individual notions and impressions. Furthermore, however useful conference might be, I had not seen in the South anything that indicated a disposition to compromise the matters in dispute.

‘And I must say,’ added he, ‘there is one thing to which we will never consent — that is separation.’

He recurred to Atlanta and spoke of General Johns[t]on in the highest terms. ‘When I heard Johns[t]on was relieved, I was as much elated as if I had been enabled to add a full corps to Sherman’s army. But Bragg is the best general you have.’

He spoke of Sherman as a most superior general — a good and kind man, too. ‘Very unrelenting, however, in his character,’ I said, ‘in walking the path marked out for himself.’ ‘Yes, that is his character. But I have another man, Sheridan, of great ability — not equal to Sherman, perhaps, but in some respects even superior to him.’

I told him that General Sherman had declined to exact any promise or pledge of me, and in reply he said that he should exact none. ‘You can say what you please. I am advised of whatever happens on your side, and I suppose your spies inform you what I am doing. I am not squeamish about persons passing through my lines. Of course the case would be different of a military man, accustomed to observe and making it his business to do so. You could not tell anything to my detriment.’

He alluded to his visit to General Scott, and remarked that, although he had often seen him in Mexico, he had never been in his company or spoken to him until the Sunday previous. I alluded to the inscription General Scott had put in the copy of his memoirs presented to General Grant, saying that I remembered General Scott had told me of a sword presented by Frederick the Great to Washington, inscribed ‘From the oldest to the greatest General in the world.’

General Grant replied he had supposed it to be original.

The conversation turned upon the changes which had been made in the art of war. I asked him if he had many visitors from the English and French army. He said yes. One of them, after inspecting everything, had said to him, ‘If you people can do so much against each other, what could you not do, if united, against the world!’

Open-field fighting was almost obsolete. During the present campaign he supposed his army had thrown up five hundred miles of breastworks. Artillery was revolutionized. He remembered when they were drilled at West Point on artillery without horses. That was during his first year there. He was not noted at West Point for proficiency in anything except riding. He had turned over to him horses that no one else could ride. At one of the examinations he leaped over four bars in one round, the last pole being raised six feet two inches. No horse had ever dislodged him from the saddle when on his guard, but he had been very often thrown through his own carelessness.

When I rose to take my leave, the staff officer before-mentioned detained me, saying very deferentially there was a question he would much like to ask me if there was no impropriety in it, as a matter of curiosity. How did the officers of the old army now in our service manage to support their families on pay so inadequate? I told him it was hard for any of us to tell how we lived; he must consider that we had learned to live on very little, wearing old clothes, and so forth; that the women had developed great industry and did much with their own hands to support the family; and again that great brotherhness of feeling was engendered among us, and that everyone who had something to eat filled his house up with his poor kindred and friends.

General Grant asked me to come to his quarters the next morning and he would carry me with him up the river and forward me through the lines.

On going back to the tavern I found an Irish Roman Catholic priest occupying the room with me. He was reading his office. Told me that during the two years he had been with the army he had read it daily, except for three days at the Wilderness.

The loungers about the hotel spoke unfavorably of the Dutch Gap Canal. They say it cannot be made deep enough for gunboats to pass without detention; that if one sticks fast for a few moments it will be sunk by our batteries and block up the canal.

In my rambles I saw the tent of the Christian Commission open by day for soldiers to read and to write letters, every night for religious worship. Observing some currant cake at a shop, I took a piece and asked the price. The man, perceiving I was a clergyman, bowed and said, ‘Nothing to you, sir.’

November 25. — After breakfast I went to General Grant’s quarters and left my baggage at the adjutant’s tent.

While I was walking about, General Meade approached me and introduced himself, reminding me that we had once traveled from Havana to Charleston together.

Allusion being made to the beauty of the day and of the prospect, and to the marring of all by the discords of war, he asked me, ‘What is to be the end of all this?’ I said I could not tell; from what I had seen neither party was disposed to yield anything, and I supposed we must fight it out to the end.

‘But what can you hope for? Why prolong the strife? You have seen what our resources are, and although accidents may modify the course of things for a time, in the end numbers will tell.'

General Grant had spoken in somewhat the same strain, saying that he was daily receiving letters urging him to call for volunteers. He could raise from 300,000 to 500,000 ninety-day or six-months men.

I replied to General Meade that I had been taught to pray, ‘Thou givest not alway the battle to the strong.’ True, the presumption, cœteris paribus, was in favor of strength; but war was a confession that reason and argument had failed: it was an appeal to the solemn arbitrament of God himself, and He did not judge according to numbers.

General Meade replied to this, ‘Both parties, I doubt not, very sincerely expect the divine interference; but I have yet to find reason for expecting that that interference will be on your side.’

Generals Grant and Meade were going to inspect Butler’s lines, attended by their staff. At 10 A. M. we went down to the steamboat, a magnificent one reserved for General Grant’s use. General Meade courteously gave me precedence at the gangway. He is a tall, fine-looking man, of more cultivated and polished manners than any other officer I saw.

Quite a number of citizens followed. These occupied the Generals. I picked up a new book and occupied myself with it, not caring to seem curious, although I should have liked to see the canal.

On reaching Aiken’s Landing, General Grant told me to remain on the boat and he would send an officer for me. The steward gave me dinner alone, turkey and pumpkin pie, I suppose of the Thanksgiving stock.

After two hours an officer came with an ambulance and conveyed me to General Butler’s headquarters, where we remained a little while. I did not leave my place, but amused myself watching an artist who was making a sketch of the house. Thence we went to General Weitzel’s quarters, where an officer to carry flag of truce joined us — and thence to General Jordan at Fort Harrison. Here my parole was demanded, in spite of my reply that General Grant was satisfied on that point. I disliked to be thus annoyed, as I am sure it was without authority; but it was now nearly night, I had no military information to give, and so the parole was really worthless. Rather than return to General Grant, I gave my parole to tell nothing of numbers and disposition of troops or of other military facts which could be used to their detriment.

The pickets were about fifty yards apart. The flag went out and was soon met. I walked across the brief interval, and after some conversation went on to General Ewell’s headquarters, a mile off, and he kindly lent me a horse. We rode together to Richmond that night.

I may mention here that the following week I was at General Lee’s headquarters, and told him what General Grant said about shelling Petersburg. His comment was, ‘I can’t say it was done by his orders, but certainly by his authority. The Northern papers told constantly of the damage done and of a longer range being obtained by which more distant portions of the city were reached. Besides, whenever a house was set on fire, we saw the fire of the enemy increased and converged on that point.’

The things that impressed me most during these weeks may be thus summed up: —

1. The difference in the physique of the armies. Our men are sinewy, theirs are fat; ours brown, theirs ruddy and ‘beefy.’

2. The profusion of military supplies in the U. S. A. Not merely profusion, but extravagance; wagons, tents, artillery ad libitum. Soldiers provided with everything.

3. The comforts of all sorts. A sutler’s shop at every little place, with many luxuries at a moderate price. Bakeries with excellent bread; soldiers buying many things to help out rations — oysters and the like.

4. The universal horror of rebellion among the masses. They speak of it as the unpardonable sin. They consider rebels outside the pale of humanity. They deem it no harm to commit any outrage upon a rebel.

5. The luxury of the North. More money and more extravagance than ever before.

6. The inflation that accompanies it. No seeming dependence on God. No fear of disaster. All minds full of the greatness of the Union. The national vainglory inexpressible.

7. The character of their generals. Men who desire to be considered honorable and kind; who really think they are so; men of punctilious courtesy and good manners, and who yet in the best conscience will do—just what they have done, and do it regretfully, as Torquemada would burn a heretic, or Marat send an aristocrat to the guillotine.

8. Thank God I am in the South. Far better our Confederate poverty, ennobled as it is by patience, than Federal wealth with its attendant pride and self-sufficiency.

I may add that everything I saw and heard, the common talk on the cars and by the wayside, among citizens and common soldiers, satisfied me that peace may be had, but only by receding from every position we have assumed and entrusting ourselves to the faith and good feeling of the Northern people.

They are elated, I may say astonished, at the wealth and might they have developed. Their idol is less the Union of the past than the sublime Union of the future, destined soon to overshadow all the nations. They deem the act of those who interrupt its triumphal progress so great an impiety as to authorize any punishment that may be inflicted.

Furthermore, they deem us to be already enveloped and hopelessly overborne by numbers; they speak pityingly of the insanity which continues to extremity a struggle the issue of which is to them almost palpable.

I brought home with me one deep and abiding conviction. We must, at whatever cost, win our independence. There is no other alternative open to us which can be for one moment considered.