Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/67

Rh way toward the now famous field of Appomattox. We marched all day of the 8th of April, and slept in bivouac not more than three or four miles from Appomattox, where the demand was made again, and was acceded to, and the Confederacy of the South went down in defeat, but with glory.

We arrived on the field of Appomattox about 9 o'clock on the 9th day of April, the day of capitulation. The negotiations lasted during that day. The general order from General Lee was read to the army on the loth of April. This is as I remember it. General Lee published his last order to his soldiers on that day.

I sat down and copied it on a piece of Confederate paper, using a bass-drum head for a desk, the best I could do. I carried this copy to General Lee, and asked him to sign it for me. He signed it, and I have it now. It is the best authority, along with my parole, that I can produce why, after that day, I no longer raised a soldier's hand for the South. There were tears in his eyes when he signed it for me, and when I turned to walk away there were tears in my own eyes too. He was in all respects the greatest man that ever lived, and as an humble soldier of the South, I thank Heaven that I had the honor of following him. 



WHO FIRED THE FIRST GUN ON THE FORT?

Roger A. Pryor Declined, and Captain James was Allowed the Distinction.

Since the publication of the claim made by Major W. M. Gibbs, of South Carolina, that he was the man who fired the first shot on Fort Sumter, there has been a great deal of discussion over the subject, says the New York World. Few people know that a distinguished citizen and an official of New York could have had that questionable privilege had he desired. Roger A. Pryor, then a distinguished young Virginian, afterwards a general in the Confederate army, and now a judge of the New York Court of Common Pleas, declined to fire on the flag of his country. 