Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/114

 114 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Loehr read an interesting and valuable paper on Point Lookout, for which the Camp returned him hearty thanks. Following is the address in full :

" If it were not for Hope, how could we live in a place like this? Point Look Out, June 3, 1865."

On a fly-leaf of a small New Testament appears these words, as well as the sketch of a cross and anchor, also the date, June 3d, 1865, and the place, Point Lookout, to all of which I acknowledge myself as the author.

In turning back to those dark days of our country's history, I do so simply to present facts and incidents in which I was a participant. I want to show how the Confederate soldier suffered even after Gene- ral Lee had bid farewell to his army at Appomattox. The words "surrendered at Appomattox," so often quoted by our Southern orators to denote "the soldier who has done his duty," is but partly true. General Lee surrendered about 26,000 men, of whom only 7,892 were armed. A greater part of them were men that were on detail duty, or held some position which kept them safely in the rear. It is a fact that few, very few, indeed, of Ewell's and Pickett's men escaped from those that stood in battle line doing their duty on the evening of April 6, 1865, at the bloody ridge of Sailor's Creek; the men left there as a forlorn hope to do the fighting, with few excep- tions, were captured or killed; and I assert without fear of contra- diction that there were more fighting men at the close of the war in Point Lookout Prison alone, not to mention Fort Delaware, Hart's Island, Johnson's Island, Newport's News, and other questionable places of amusement, than there were in Lee's whole army at the surrender. I think the remarks necessary in justice to the Confed- erate soldiers who suffered and starved in the fearful prison-pens of the North, but did not " surrender at Appomattox."

BATTLE OF FIVE FORKS.

To begin, on April i, 1865, the battle of Five Forks was fought. Our thin lines were pushed back and broken by a force perhaps ten times as large, and many of our men were forced to surrender. Our position was about twenty miles west of Petersburg, and the enemy's infantry broke through our line between us and that city, while his cavalry's (Sheridan's) attacked our front, where, however, for a time they were easily repulsed, until our men were withdrawn to face the